Ominous Bagnaia claims first MotoGP pole of 2024

Even the Abu Dhabi Self-Driving Car Racing League

Pico Bagnaia secured pole position at the Dutch MotoGP Grand Prix with a new all-time record, continuing the dominance of the weekend for the Ducati Team rider.

The current champion clocked a time of 1m30.540s to top the timesheet, edging out Pramac rival and points leader Jorge Martin to claim his first pole of 2024 by just over 0.1s.

Bagnaia had already led both practice sessions on Friday – his first ever FP1 lead in MotoGP – and will now take pole position for both Saturday's race and Sunday's main race.

Martin had set a new record earlier in the second round of qualifying, with a time of 1:30.877 on his first flying lap, with Bagnaia second on his first attempt with a time of 1:21.048.

The world champion then shaved 0.3 seconds off his best lap to climb to the top and secure pole position, with Martin unable to improve amid traffic problems.

The best of the rest

Maverick Viñales will line up alongside the Ducati duo on the front row, while Gresini Ducati rider Alex Marquez and Viñales' Aprilia teammate Aleix Espargaro are fifth.

Espargaro avoided late trouble after coming close to a crash with Marc Márquez, who skidded at Turn 7 while trying to overtake Espargaro in the final moments, after overtaking him at the final turn.

VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio was third early with a time of 1:31.274 seconds, but did not improve and was demoted to sixth at the time.

Marc Marquez will start seventh after his late crash in front of Pramac's Franco Morbidelli and KTM's Brad Binder.

Pedro Acosta lines up in 10th after topping the first round of qualifying, clocking a 1:31.372 to top the timesheet before a very late crash, and an aerodynamic loss before the crucial second round of qualifying session, despite repairing his Tech3 GasGas machine. Do it quickly.

Enea Bastianini will start 11th for the factory Ducati, while Raul Fernandez for Trackhouse Racing will take 12th.

Who was absent in Q1?

Fabio Di Giannantonio had finished second in the previous qualifying session, and moved into Q2 after Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo was eliminated in the dying moments of the session with a time of 1:31.390s – 0.3s faster than the Frenchman who would finish 13th.

Jack Miller will start the race in 14th place for KTM, ahead of VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi, who had two crashes on Saturday morning. The first occurred in FP3, when he slid out of Turn 7, before crashing out of Turn 5 in the first session with two minutes to go.

Yamaha rider Alex Rins is 16th ahead of Trackhouse Racing's Miguel Oliveira and Aprilia test rider Lorenzo Savadori.

Johann Zarco leads the Honda team on his LCR in 19th place ahead of the duo of Joan Mir and Luca Marini, with Augusto Fernandez (Tech3 GasGas) and LCR's Takaaki Nakagami in the final two places.

Practice concerns

Earlier, in FP3, Marc Marquez headed out early before realising he had forgotten his knee lubes, and immediately returned to the Gresini garage to retrieve them. Shortly after, his teammate and brother Alex had a bike problem and moved to his second machine.

Turn 7 claimed two casualties in practice, with Raul Fernandez suffering the same fate as Pizzicchi five minutes later, resulting in a red flag for clearing gravel from the track and a trip to the Trackhouse Racing rider's medical centre.