Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi claimed pole position for MotoGP’s season-opening Thailand Grand Prix despite crashing late on in qualifying.
Bezzecchi was on course to improve his early Q2 benchmark on his final flying lap, but lost his factory RS-GP under braking for Turn 12.
Although his earlier effort was fractionally slower than the outright circuit record he had set in Friday practice, he held on to pole position by just 0.035s from Ducati’s Marc Marquez.
At the start of qualifying, Bezzecchi carried over the fine form he had shown earlier in Buriram, breaking the 1m29s barrier on his first flying lap before pulling further clear with a time of 1m28.652s.
His factory Aprilia team-mate Jorge Martin also went under the 1m29s level to go second, while Fernandez came from Q1 on the Trackhouse Aprilia to go third-quickest.
At this stage, Ducati wasn’t even Aprilia’s closest challenger on the leaderboard, with KTM’s Pedro Acosta holding fourth place ahead of the Marquez brothers.
But reigning world champion Marc Marquez responded on his second run to mount a serious challenge against pre-qualifying favourite Bezzecchi. After lighting up the timing screens with a string of fastest sectors, he appeared set to go to the top, only to fall just short with a 1m28.687s.
Meanwhile, Fernandez claimed third with his previous effort of 1m28.876s, ensuring two Aprilias on the front row of the grid.
VR46’s Fabio di Giannantonio was the fastest Ducati rider after the first run, but ultimately finished in fourth place ahead of Martin, who ran over the gravel on his final flying lap.
Acosta slipped to sixth in the final order, but was still comfortably the fastest KTM rider on the grid, about four tenths off pole position.
Alex Marquez wound up seventh on the Gresini Ducati, while Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura made it four Aprilias inside the top eight.
The top 10 was rounded out by VR46 rider Fabio di Giannantonio and Honda’s Joan Mir. Brad Binder (KTM) and Johann Zarco (LCR) completed the Q2 runners.
Bagnaia eliminated in Q1
Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia was the highest-profile casualty in Q1, the Italian slumping to 13th on the grid after an error-strewn qualifying session.
The two-time MotoGP champion sat third after the opening run, but a switch to fresh soft tyres failed to deliver an improvement as he ran wide on all three of his subsequent flying laps.
He will line up on the fifth row of the grid alongside factory Honda rider Luca Marini and rookie Diogo Moreira, the latter impressing on his MotoGP debut to qualify 15th.
Fabio Quartararo led Yamaha’s charge in 16th place, but was more than nine tenths adrift of the fastest Q1 time set by Fernandez.
Three-time World Superbike champion Toprak Razgatlioglu will start his first MotoGP race from 21st on the grid, while Fermin Aldeguer’s stand-in Michele Pirro (Gresini) will complete the 22-bike grid.
MotoGP Thailand GP: Q2 results
MotoGP Thailand GP: Q1 results:
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– The Autosport.com Team
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