Martin snatches Valencia pole from Bagnaia, Miller makes it all-Ducati front row

Jorge Martin will start the Valencia MotoGP from pole after getting the better of both factory Ducati riders Francesco Bagnaia and Jack Miller, 

Martin’s pole position is the fourth of his rookie campaign, while Bagnaia and Miller both suffered crashes on their final laps. 

It was Miller who initially set the pace as he went four tenths quicker than Fabio Quartararo and team-mate Bagnaia.

Franco Morbidelli, who has had by far his best weekend since returning from injury, then went second fastest before Bagnaia and Mir jumped back ahead of the Italian. 

Morbidelli was then relegated to sixth after Alex Rins and Quartararo got ahead. 

Martin managed to split the two factory Ducati riders on his final lap of stint #1 by setting an identical lap time to Miller. But it was the Australian who kept hold of provisional pole due to setting the time first. 

As has been the case all weekend, gaps were incredibly close as Miller, Martin and Bagnaia were all within +0.015s of each other to begin run #2. 

Bagnaia’s first lap out of pit lane looked to put pole out of reach for the rest of the field, before eventually going another two tenths quicker with a 1:30.000s.

However, Martin came round to eventually set the first sub 1m 30s lap of the weekend, moments after Bagnaia had crashed at turn two.

Bagnaia wasn’t alone in going down as Miller followed suit at turn 11 whilst on a lap quick enough to challenge Martin for pole. 

Heading off the second row is Mir who has continued his impressive gains over one-lap from Misano and Portimao. Johann Zarco was fifth, while Mir’ Suzuki team-mate Rins finished sixth.

2021 world champion Quartararo suffered more qualifying woes after only claiming eighth - finished behind the KTM of Brad Binder who claimed his best qualifying result of the season.

Qualifying One

Pol Espargaro, who would have needed to go through Q1, was unable to take part in qualifying due to suffering a brutal FP3 crash. 

The Repsol Honda rider was immediately taken to the medical centre before officially being ruled out of Saturday’s remaining action. His participation for Sunday remains to be confirmed. 

On-track, Suzuki rider Alex Rins was the early pacesetter from Brad Binder. Narrowly behind Binder were Tech 3 KTM riders Danilo Petrucci and Iker Lecuona, while his team-mate Miguel Oliveira was only seventh. 

Binder then looked set to close the gap on Rins before running wide at the final corner, a mistake that resulted in the South African aborting his next effort and returning to pit lane. 

At the start of riders’ second and final runs, Binder momentarily lost P2 to Andrea Dovizioso, however, the former Moto3 world champion regained that position on his first quick lap. 

Dovizioso was unable to apply more pressure on Binder, as was the case for Vinales - was fourth- as both riders struggled to improve their times. 

In fact, Rins and Binder were the only two that went quicker as the chequered flag came out which was enough to secure their passage into Q2.