Francesco Bagnaia wins the pole position at Motegi, ready to gain some points toward Miguel Oliveira (9th). Fabio Quartararo and Iker Lecuona will be on the front row too.
The Qualifying round for the intermediate category ends with Francesco Bagnaia’s name on top: the Sky Racing Team VR46 rider is really determined to keep closer to his first World title, and he takes the first step toward this goal winning the pole position at Motegi. Just behind him, we find Fabio Quartararo and Iker Lecuona, who got his first front row on a GP starting grid. Miguel Oliveira closed the round with a 9th place.
The Qualifying round started with the current World Championship leader Bagnaia taking the lead, temporarily followed by Lecuona (he registered the best time on Friday but risked falling down in the second half of this round) and Quartararo (the quickest during FP3). The first crash was that of Manzi, luckily with no serious consequences for the young rider who managed to re-enter the competition. Baldassarri risked falling too, but the actual crash was that of his teammate Fernández, who went down in the last few minutes of the round and had to leave Qualifying early.
There are no other important changes in the ranking, and Francesco Bagnaia can celebrate a new pole position. Fabio Quartararo overtook Iker Lecuona and got the 2nd place, ahead of the Spanish rider. Marcel Schrötter finished 4th, followed by Lorenzo Baldassarri and Alex Marquez. Xavi Vierge will be opening the 3rd row, together with Tetsuta Nagashima and Miguel Oliveira. The last position in the top 10 went to Brad Binder.
The ranking
