Bagnaia shocks to take first pole of 2025 

The final minutes of the Czech GP qualifying session provided drama as Francesco Bagnaia took his first pole position of the 2025 MotoGP season. 

After the first run, Marc Marquez was just under a tenth of a second ahead of the Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo at the top of the field. Bagnaia hadn’t even registered a time following a problem on the first run, but once underway, ‘Pecco’ dislodged the Spaniard from the top spot. 

Bagnaia had been stuck in Q1 before a miraculous late improvement managed to put him into the Q2 session. 

Marco Bezzecchi was the first rider to add interest to the session when he went down at Turn 1. With yellow flags displayed, the riders would only get one shot to improve their lap times. 

It seemed like Marquez would secure the 74th pole position of his career as he was almost three tenths up on his final lap, which was more than enough to take pole. However, Johann Zarco had gone down heading into the last sequence of corners, and he was shortly joined by Marquez, who slid off the track. 

Bagnaia secured pole with Marquez in second, while Quartararo took advantage of the grippy conditions that the Yamaha bike seems to like and lined up third. 

Fourth fell to a lucky Bezzecchi, who should have been pushed further down the order following his off, while Joan Mir and Raul Fernandez lined up in fifth and sixth respectively. 

Pedro Acosta couldn’t do better than seventh on the KTM, which was a rocket on the straights, with Alex Marquez behind in eighth. 2020 polesitter Zarco was ninth following his crash with Jack Miller in 10th. Enea Bastianini and reigning champion Jorge Martin rounded out the top 12. 

In 13th was a disappointed Fabio Di Giannantonio, who had plenty of success at the Brno circuit in junior categories in the past, while Pol Espargaro’s sideways heroics on the Tech3 KTM were only enough for 14th on the grid. 

The other factory Yamaha of Alex Rins and Luca Marini were 15th and 16th, with Miguel Oliveira in 17th. Fermin Aldeguer was unexpectedly low down in 18th, while 2020 Czech GP winner Brad Binder only managed 19th to equal his worst qualifying place of the year. 

Takaaki Nakagami, Ai Ogura, and Yamaha’s wildcard of Augusto Fernandez rounded out the grid.