For only 160 thousandths, Álex Rins (Honda LCR) was left without his first pole position in MotoGP. It was stolen in the last lap of the qualifying session by the champion, a Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) with emergencies after his zero in Argentina.

“We were making small steps forward, I am very happy, little by little I am feeling better; it will be difficult to contain the Ducati beasts on the straights”, said the Catalan rider, who is good at Austin, since he won in 2019 and was second last year.

The qualifying session for the grid (both in the Sprint and in the feature race on Sunday) had Bagnaia and Àlex Márquez as protagonists, with a game of rascals to avoid the slipstream.

The Italian marked a stratospheric 2m02s576, and the youngest of the Márquez, without the wheel of the Ducati, traced the time to the thousandth, which is why he rose to second position.

However, entering the session at the last minute, Bagnaia had a slight off track, Martín -one of the candidates for pole position- crashed for the second time and was erased from the applicants, and a surprising Álex Rins appeared to lower the champion’s time by 190 thousandths. He was put on provisional pole. At the same time, Àlex Márquez crashed on his last attempt, and Bagnaia, with the clock already at zero, fell below 2m02s with a stratospheric track record (2m01s892) that gave him pole position.

Marini led Àlex Márquez from the first starting row, who will start fourth, along with Bezzecchi and Aleix Espargaró, sixth.

The leader, Marco Bezzecchi, who had been 11th in the calculation of the two free practice sessions, had to pass through the Q1 play-off. The Italian passed among the top 12 for Q2 with the second best time, only surpassed in the last lap by Johann Zarco (Ducati), who threw Joan Mir (Honda) out of the privileged group by two tenths.

1. Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati)

2. Alex Rins (Honda)

3. Luca Marini (Ducati)

4. Alex Marquez (Ducati)

5. Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati)

6. Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia)

7. Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha)

8. Maverick Vinales (Aprilia)

9. Johann Zarco (Ducati)

10. Jack Miller (KTM)

11. Brad Binder (KTM)

12. Jorge Martin (Ducati)

13.Joan Mir (Honda)

14. Franco Morbidelli (Yamaha)

15. Miguel Oliveira (Aprilia)

16. Fabio di Giannantonio (Ducati)

17. Takaaki Nakagami (Honda)

18. Michele Pirro (Ducati)

19. Raul Fernandez (Aprilia)

20. Augusto Fernández (KTM)

21. Stefan Bradl (Honda)

22. Jonas Folger (KTM)

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