Francesco Bagnaia takes his first pole position this season in Le Mans

FP2

The morning FP2 is mostly used as a warm-up before the riders take on qualification. Just like yesterday, it was sunny and warm outside, creating perfect conditions on track.

The first laps were in a time range of 1:32 to 1:34s. The lead was taken by Francesco Bagnaia. The riders chose soft tyres at the front and rear. With the next attempts, the times were improving quickly and so were the positions. Fabio Quartararo was the first rider to break into the 1:30s with just 6 minutes into the session.

With 10 minutes into the session, the top 10 looked as follows: Quartararo, Bagnaia, Acosta, Di Giannantonio, Bastianini, A. Márquez, Fernandez, Bezzecchi, Moreira, Mir.

While Bagnaia was comfortably in 2nd place, his teammate Marc Márquez was in 11th place, not able to break into the top 10 so far.

Zarco, who had dominated yesterday afternoon practice, was in 15th place, not looking as fast as they did before.

What made the session interesting was that, besides Folger in last place, the order was all within 1 second from first to Rins. After a break in the pits, some of the riders changed their tyre configuration for a hard rear tyre.

The positions stayed mostly the same, with only a few riders making improvements, like Fernandez, who moved into 4th place, and the Aprilia duo of Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin in 5th and 6th place.

With 5 minutes left, the top 10 looked as follows: Quartararo, Bagnaia, Di Giannantonio, Fernandez, Bezzecchi, Martin, Bastianini, Acosta, Zarco, A. Márquez.

With 4 minutes left, Johann Zarco crashed out at Sector 4, bringing out a yellow flag. With only a few seconds left in the session, the majority of the riders were already in the pits, leaving only a few on track, fighting for a late improvement. Those were Bagnaia, whose lap got cancelled, and Alex Márquez, who had a decent lap started, but was slower in Sectors 3 and 4, leaving him without an improvement.

Q1

In this part of qualification were: Bastianini, Binder, M. Márquez, Fernandez, Mir, Miller, Marini, Quartararo, Morbidelli, Moreira, Razgatlioglu, Aldeguer, and Folger.

With only 3 minutes into the session, there was a crash caused by Enea Bastianini, who crashed at Turn 3, bringing the yellow flag out.

The first times were in a range from 1:30 to 1:31s. With the next laps, the times got faster. Raul Fernandez was the first to break into the 1:29s, taking the lead. The two advancing riders so far were Quartararo and Fernandez.

Quartararo started a great lap, and even when he was slower in Sector 3, he took the lead and joined Fernandez in the 1:29s time range.

In third place was Marc Márquez, who was not going to give up that easily. After a quick stop in the pits, the riders were back on track, ready for the final push.

With 5 minutes left, the order looked as follows: Quartararo, Fernandez, M. Márquez, Morbidelli, Marini, Moreira, Miller, Binder, Aldeguer, Razgatlioglu, Folger, Bastianini.

Marc Márquez put in an incredible lap, moving to first place, having a gap of 0.431s to Quartararo. He even broke the lap record by 0.036s.

Fernandez, trying his hardest, was slower in a few sectors and was left without improvement, staying in third place.

And with the chequered flag out, it was official that the two advancing riders were Marc Márquez and Fabio Quartararo.

Q2

In this part of qualification were: M. Márquez, A. Márquez, Zarco, Di Giannantonio, Bagnaia, Mir, Martin, Bezzecchi, Rins, Ogura, Acosta, and Quartararo.

The lap times were in a range from 1:30 to 1:31s. The lead was taken by Bezzecchi soon after, as he and Di Giannantonio were in the 1:29s time range.

With the riders going back to the pits, the order looked as follows: Bezzecchi, Di Giannantonio, Martin, Mir, Ogura, M. Márquez, Quartararo, Acosta, Rins, A. Márquez, Zarco, Bagnaia.

There was an incident between Di Giannantonio and Acosta, where Di Giannantonio was slow on the exit of the turn and blocked Acosta behind him. However, this incident was left without further investigation or penalisation by the stewards.

With 5 minutes left, the riders made their way back for the final push. Marc Márquez once again put in an incredible lap and moved to provisional pole position, but just as he crossed the finish line, his brother Alex Márquez crashed out, bringing out a yellow flag.

Most of the riders improved their positions, like Quartararo in 4th and Ogura in 8th. However, Francesco Bagnaia put in a really good lap and moved into provisional pole position ahead of his teammate.

With the chequered flag out, some of the riders were on their last lap. Di Giannantonio was so close to getting onto the first row, but he was slowed down by Bagnaia and was left without further improvement in 4th place.

It was Francesco Bagnaia taking pole position, with his teammate Marc Márquez in second and Bezzecchi in third.

However, the incident involving Bagnaia and Di Giannantonio was taken under investigation by the race stewards. But after reviewing the action, the stewards decided on no further investigation.