Quartararo betters Marquez for Le Mans pole

Fabio Quartararo set himself up for a perfect home race weekend by snatching a second consecutive MotoGP pole position from Marc Marquez at Le Mans on Saturday morning.

The Yamaha rider repeated his Jerez performance by defeating the factory Ducati fair and square in Q2.

Alex Marquez will start third for Gresini Ducati, while Francesco Bagnaia could only manage sixth on the second factory Ducati.

Earlier, Q1 was interrupted after five minutes when Ai Ogura’s stricken Aprilia proved tough to retrieve from the gravel trap at Chemin aux Boeufs, where the Japanese rider had fallen. While he was unharmed and departed the scene fast, his engine stayed running despite the bike lying on its side. Ogura was in fact back in the garage before his bike was cleared!

That left 10 minutes on the clock when the session restarted. This was effectively only enough time for one qualifying run, so most riders waited a couple more minutes before heading out for their single attack.

The home fans breathed a sigh of relief when Johann Zarco hit the top of the timing screens with three minutes to go. The French LCR Honda rider had missed out on direct passage into Q2 following a late fall in practice on Friday. The 34-year-old was able to hold his position atop the leaderboard until the end of the session and ensure he would join countryman Quartararo in the battle for pole.

Joining him in Q2 was an unexpected companion in Raul Fernandez. Ogura’s team-mate has had a wretched 2025 thus far but had shown signs of a breakthrough on Friday. This was confirmed in Q1 as the Spaniard got within three hundredths of Zarco to claim second-fastest time ahead of more fancied candidates, including the factory Hondas of Joan Mir and Luca Marini, VR46 Ducati rider Fabio di Giannantonio and KTM’s Brad Binder.

As at Jerez two weeks ago, Marc Marquez threw down the gauntlet in the first part of Q2. His 1m29.442s lap shattered the new lap record he had set on Friday – and the best initial response was more than three tenths away from Marc’s mark. This came from Quartararo, who led Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer as the riders returned to the pits to grab fresh soft rears for the final run.

At this point, Bagnaia was down in 11th, over a second off the pace despite no obviously visible issue.

But in another repeat of Jerez, Quartararo was able to better Marquez’s early benchmark with a remarkable pole lap in the second phase. The home hero hit the front with his last tour of the session, and Marquez was unable to improve on the one flying lap he had remaining.

Aldeguer popped ahead of Alex Marquez early in the final phase but then fell at the first corner of his next flying lap, allowing his Gresini team-mate to reclaim third position and return to the front row after missing it for the first time in 2025 at Jerez.

Bagnaia was able to stage only a limited recovery in the final part of qualifying, landing up in sixth place. The Italian was more than seven tenths away from pole position.

Between Aldeguer and Bagnaia on row two will be Maverick Vinales, who continues to lead the KTM attack.

Row three will be made up of three riders who went against the grain and set their times on hard front tyres: Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia), Jack Miller (Pramac Yamaha) and Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati).

While the Le Mans faithful had one Frenchman to celebrate at the very top of the leaderboard, they were to be disappointed by Zarco. The Cannes native had another fall in Q2 and could only manage 11th.

Zarco will line up between Fernandez and Pedro Acosta (KTM) on the fourth row, with the latter qualifying 12th for a third consecutive time.

French Grand Prix Q2 results