Fabio di Giannantonio came through Q1 to deliver pole position for VR46 in the MotoGP Brazilian Grand Prix, despite suffering a late crash himself in qualifying.
Although the track remained dry throughout Saturday after heavy showers earlier in the weekend, the Goiania circuit caught out several riders in qualifying.
Francesco Bagnaia was the first rider to go down in Q2, losing his factory Ducati at Turn 10 just three minutes into the session.
Championship leader Pedro Acosta was the next rider to suffer a fall, becoming the latest victim of the notorious Turn 4, with Marc Marquez crashing at the same corner soon after.
While all three were able to return to the garage to mount their second bikes, the early drama allowed di Giannantonio to grab provisional pole on the VR46 Ducati, with Marquez holding on to second place.
Jorge Martin held third place at the end of the first runs, with his Aprilia team-mate Marco Bezzecchi grabbing fifth at the halfway mark.
When the second runs began, di Giannantonio fractionally improved his time to 1m17.410s, but this still left him vulnerable to his rivals in the dying minutes of qualifying.
Martin was on course to go quicker than the Italian, but went down at Turn 6 with just three minutes left on the clock, leading to yellow flags being waved.
Di Giannantonio himself suffered a late crash at Turn 4 shortly after, plunging qualifying into chaos.
However, no one rider was ultimately able to outpace the 27-year-old, who held on to clinch just the second pole position of his MotoGP career.
Thailand Grand Prix winner Bezzecchi climbed to second towards the end of the session, but was unable to replicate his Q1 lap, which would have secured him pole position by 0.002s.
Third place on the grid went to the factory Ducati of Marquez, while Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo put together an incredible lap in the final moments to grab fourth.
Martin remained fifth despite his late crash, beating the Trackhouse Aprilia of Ai Ogura.
Gresini duo Fermin Aldeguer and Alex Marquez wound up seventh and eighth respectively, while Acosta could manage no better than ninth on the factory KTM following his early tumble.
Johann Zarco (LCR), Bagnaia and Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pramac) made up the fourth row of the grid in 10th, 11th and 12th respectively.
Diogo Moreira, Team LCR Honda
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
Factory Honda rider Joan Mir ended up 13th on the grid, after being pipped to the final Q2 spot by VR46 rival di Giannantonio. He was closely followed by home favourite Diogo Moreira on the LCR-mounted Honda.
The Brazilian held a provisional Q2 spot at the end of the opening run, but a mistake on his next flying lap prevented him from improving his earlier time of 1m17.812s.
Franco Morbidelli (VR46), Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse) and Alex Rins (Yamaha) were next up in 15th, 16th and 17th respectively. Both Jack Miller (Pramac) and Luca Marini (Honda) suffered their second crashes of the weekend in Q1, consigning them to 18th and 19th on the grid.
The 22-bike field was propped up by the KTMs of Maverick Vinales, Brad Binder and Enea Bastianini.
Q2 results:
Q1 results:
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– The Autosport.com Team
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