Highly dramatic MotoGP qualifying in Le Mans! In the final phase of Q2, Jorge Martin, Francesco Bagnaia, Aleix Espargaro and Jack Miller crashed. Martin still takes pole position ahead of Bagnaia. Marc Marquez is already off work in Q1. Brad Binder starts from the back of the field after technical problems.
This is how Q1 went at Le Mans: Marc Marquez starts the first run directly behind Enea Bastianini. He leaves the track in turn three and doesn’t offer Marquez any slipstream. He still sets a first best time that no other driver can achieve in this outing. Miguel Oliveira, Raul Fernandez and Bastianini are his first pursuers. Qualifying got off to a bad start for Brad Binder, who crashed three times on Friday. He only rides one lap on his number one bike, comes back to the pits shaking his head and finally switches to his second bike.
Even after the pit stop, Marc Marquez clings to Bastianini’s rear again, but this time he makes a massive mistake on the approach to Turn 3, which he can only save with a lot of skill. But he has to go into the run-off zone and stop the lap. Meanwhile, Bastianini is clearly in the lead and is more than three tenths of a second ahead of Marquez.
A little later, Augusto Fernandez and Johann Zarco fall, which is why yellow flags are waved. Marquez will therefore have his last fast lap canceled. Oliveira, on the other hand, passes the accident sites at the right time, sets a valid time and pushes Marquez out of second place. Bastianini and Oliveira move up to Q2.
Marc Marquez has to make do with 13th place on the grid, next to him are Raul Fernandez and Johann Zarco. Row six consists of Alex Rins, Alex Marquez and Joan Mir. Starting positions 19 to 21 go to Takaaki Nakagami, Augusto Fernandez and Luca Marini. Brad Binder is at the back of the field after the technical problems at the start of the session.
That was Q2 of the French GP: The first exchange of blows in Q2 clearly goes to Jorge Martin. In what has been an extremely close weekend so far, he takes the lead by almost two tenths of a second ahead of Francesco Bagnaia, while the factory Aprilias with Maverick Vinales and Aleix Espargaro are already losing more than half a second in third and fourth place. Acosta is lurking in fifth place.
Things get crazy in the big finale: Martin screws up his first fast lap and crashes in turn four on the following lap! At the same time, Bagnaia is on course for a new best time, but also crashes in turn 9. Because Aleix Espargaro also crashes in turn three and Jack Miller in turn 8, there is hardly any improvement.
Martin takes pole position ahead of Bagnaia and Vinales. In row two are Fabio Di Giannantonio, Marco Bezzecchi and Aleix Espargaro. Starting positions seven to nine go to Acosta, Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli. Bastianini, Miller and Oliveira make up the fourth row of the grid.
The weather: The MotoGP stars were able to enjoy ideal conditions when chasing times in qualifying. They were offered cloudless skies, 21 degrees outside temperature and 31 degrees on the asphalt.