FP2

After a wet and rainy Friday, the action on Saturday was in completely different conditions. The 30-minute-long practice session started and the riders went on track immediately, to get used to the fully dry track before the qualifying session. As riders put in first measured times, the time range was following from 1:56 to 1:54s. After the first five minutes, the top five looked as follows: Fabio Quartararo, Jack Miller, Fabio Di Giannantonio, Marc Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi. But it was clear that the times would get much faster at the end and even more so during qualifying. Marc was the first rider to dip into the 1:53 time range, yet Quartararo soon joined him, taking the lead from him.

Miguel Oliveira surprised with him being in fourth place, confirming that Yamaha on soft tyres is strong. After the first 10 minutes of the session, the top 5 looked as follows: Quartararo, Bezzecchi, Marc, Acosta and Di Giannantonio. We had a fight between Marc and Quartararo for the lead, making it interesting to watch. Jorge Martin, who had a decent Friday for his return, was in 16th place, slowly adapting to the dry track and the bike. Bagnaia, who missed out yesterday on Q2, was in 11th place, yet he wasn’t very present at the top. With the session getting closer to halfway, the riders started to return to the box, for feedback to their mechanics, where they remained until the final 10 minutes of the session had started.

During the remaining 10 minutes, riders were using this time to practice their flying laps for quali. There was Marc who even more improved his time to 1:53.724, with Acosta being in second place. However, Acosta didn’t hold the second place for a long time, before Di Giannantonio took it from him. Marc struck again, and improved his time even more to 1:53.284, being comfortably in the lead. In the last 2 minutes, riders started their final measured lap times. So far Bagnaia had to have some technical issues, as it was weird for him to drop so low and not be able to improve above 10th place. Alex Marquez started a very good lap and it looked like he could attack the lead. But sadly in the end it wasn’t enough to improve and he stayed in 4th place. But Pol Espargaro improved to 5th place, being the top KTM rider.

Q1

The first qualifying started with Raul Fernandez, Fermin Aldeguer, Francesco Bagnaia, Alex Rins, Brad Binder, Di Giannantonio, Espargaro, Augusto Fernandez, Oliveira, Ai Ogura, Takaaki Nakagami and Luca Marini. In this session the two fastest riders will move to Q2. The first times started in a time range of 1:54 to 1:53s. After 5 minutes the provisional advancing riders were Di Giannantonio and Espargaro. Bagnaia started a good lap but he made a mistake and ran wide. It was visible that Bagnaia wasn’t happy with how the bike worked and it was seen in his results as well, leaving him 6th so far as he returned to the garage. And with the session being at its halfway point, the majority of the riders returned to the garage, before they went for their final attempts. But Bagnaia managed to put in a lap that put him in first place with Alex Rins in the second.
The riders who continued to Q2 were Bagnaia and Raul Fernandez.

Q2

The last part of qualifying started with all riders going on track so they would have more time for their attempts. The first measured times started in a time range from 2:00 to 1:52. The lead was taken from the start by Marc Marquez. Yet his teammate Bagnaia struggled, he got his first lap deleted and afterwards he went back into the box. The top five after half of the session looked like this: Marc, Quartararo, Bezzecchi, Acosta and Alex Marquez. While everyone went into the box, the only riders on track were Bagnaia and Quartararo. And Bagnaia pulled out an incredible run and he took the pole position. There was a first yellow flag, three minutes before the end, caused by Marco Bezzecchi, who went into the gravel due to a mistake and crashed into the barrier.

The riders entered their last measured lap times, Marc started a very good lap and he was estimated for the pole position, but he crashed before the end. However, he wasn’t the only rider who crashed, as Johann Zarco crashed at the same place as Marc, while Miller crashed as well. The lead was as follows: Bagnaia, Marc, Quartararo, Bezzecchi, Mir, Fernandez, Acosta, Alex, Zarco, Miller, Bastianini and Marini.