A balanced fight until the last seconds! Who will start the Qatar Grand Prix from pole position?

Finally, we have arrived! The new Moto GP season kicks off with a race weekend in Qatar, and with Saturday’s qualifying under our belts, it was really something to watch. So who will start the Qatar Grand Prix from pole position?

A total of fourteen riders made it through to the first part of qualifying (Q1 – ed.), and as usual, only two riders will progress to Q2 from that first act. The non-advancing drivers will start Sunday’s race according to their position in Q1.

Darryn Binder, Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner will start the Qatar Grand Prix from the last row, from positions 24, 23 and 22 respectively. The former didn’t even finish qualifying, as he crashed in Turn 2 during his quick timed attempt, and is thus condemned to start from the very tail of the grid.

The penultimate row of the grid will be occupied by Fabio Di Giannantonio, Andrea Dovizioso and Maverick Viñales behind the trio of Alex Márquez, Luca Marini and Takaaki Nakagami. Marco Bezzecchi put in a solid performance in qualifying on Saturday and will start from the 15th starting slot on Sunday.

Fourteenth place on the grid belongs to Miguel Oliveira on the Red Bull KTM, whose performance in qualifying was not enough to advance, just like in the case of last season’s best non-touring rider Johann Zarco.

It should be noted, Zarco had his fast time wiped out due to excessive speed in the sector where yellow flags were flying due to Binder’s crash.

Current champion Fabio Quartararo advanced to the second and final part of the qualifying session after having his best time in Q2 stolen at the last moment by Brad Binder on a Red Bull KTM. The 26-year-old South African clocked a time of 1:53.512.

As usual, twelve riders shared the pole position in Q2 and it was truly something to watch.

The Monster Energy Yamaha Moto GP Team riders are fourth on the grid, with Franco Morbidelli in twelfth place, ahead of Frenchman Quartararo on the grid on Sunday. The two factory Yamaha riders will be joined on the fourth row by Alex Rins on his Suzuki motorcycle.

Francesco Bagnaia set a great time at the start of Q2, but was unable to accelerate later in qualifying and will start from position number 9. Eighth on the grid will be Joan Mir, Rins’ teammate.

A solid seventh place was secured by South African Binder, who will be preceded by a pair of Espargaro brothers – Pol Espargaro will start from sixth on Sunday, with Aleix on the Aprilia starting from fifth. Jack Miller on the Ducati held pole position for a while, but in the end he is fourth on the results list.

On the front row at the start of the Qatar Grand Prix, we will see Marc Márquez in third, who lost his first place in qualifying in the last two minutes, Enea Bastianini in second, and pole position thanks to an amazing performance by Jorge Martin with a time of 1:53.011.

“For the first time in my career I’m on the front row, I’m really happy for today. We have done a lot of work and I am happy for the whole team. I made a mistake in the last sector, but it was still a very good lap,” said Bastianini in the post-qualifying interview.

“I feel very good about getting pole position, but I’m not as happy as I could be. We didn’t have the rhythm that I thought we would have. We need to keep working, to accelerate by one or two tenths and to keep an eye on tyre degradation. We want to fight for the win tomorrow,” said Martin also immediately after qualifying.

Source: Moto GP