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MotoGP San Marino GP: Marco Bezzecchi stuns to take pole for Aprilia

Marco Bezzecchi dethroned Alex Marquez at the last moment to claim pole position for the San Marino Grand Prix, while MotoGP points leader Marc Marquez qualified outside the front row in fourth.

Gresini’s Alex Marquez laid the initial marker in Q2, lowering the benchmark to 1m30.222s to take provisional pole after the first run.

As the second run began, a number of riders delivered big improvements, with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo lapping within a tenth of the younger Marquez with a time of 1m30.318s.

However, Bezzecchi staged a late upset on the factory Aprilia, taking advantage of a tow from team-mate Jorge Martin to post a time of 1m30.134s on his final effort.

With British GP and Catalan GP winner Marquez unable to go any quicker on his final run, the Italian held on to pole position on his home turf by just 0.088s.

This was Bezzecchi’s third pole position of the 2025 campaign, following on from the British GP in May and the Austrian GP last month.

Third place on the grid went to Quartararo, who came all the way from Q1 to book a spot on the front row.

Alex Marquez, Gresini Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Factory Ducati rider Marc Marquez was unusually off the pace throughout qualifying, having sat seventh in the provisional order after his first run. He improved significantly to post a time of 1m30.352s, but it was only good enough for fourth on the grid.

VR46 duo Franco Morbidelli and Fabio di Giannantonio qualified fifth and seventh respectively, separated by the top Honda of HRC rider Luca Marini.

Francesco Bagnaia ended up eighth on the other works Ducati, while Pedro Acosta ended up a disappointing ninth after crashing on his final run while following the GP25 of Marc Marquez.

Rounding out the top 10 was Gresini rider Fermin Aldeguer, while Martin could only manage the 11th quickest time on the factory Aprilia, over eight tenths off his pole-sitting team-mate Bezzecchi.

Marini’s team-mate Joan Mir elected to sit out Saturday’s action after reporting neck pain following his crash in Friday practice. However, having earned a direct entry into Q2, he will line up 12th on the grid, should he take part in the grand prix on Sunday.

Pramac’s Miguel Oliveira missed out on Q2 by under a tenth of a second and will line up 13th ahead of Trackhouse duo Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura, the pair setting identical lap times.

Augusto Fernandez qualified the V4-powered Yamaha M1 in 22nd, just ahead of LCR’s Somkiat Chantra, with a best time of 1m31.812s. However, the Spaniard’s lap was 0.130s slower than his best effort from second practice on Friday.