MotoGP Valencia Qualifying: Jorge Martin leads Ducati 1-2-3

Jorge Martin takes pole position in a stunning qualifying session at Valencia.

Jorge Martin blasted his way to pole position at Valencia today putting an end to the five pole position streak of Francesco Bagnaia and slightly annoying everyone who was praying for Bagnaia to take pole position with the perfect lap time of 1:30.000, just me? Alrighty then.

It was a pretty dramatic final 5 minutes of the session with many of the top riders eying up pole position, the final results almost identical to what we saw in Portimao with four Ducati’s in the top five joined by Joan Mir. It was a pole position destined for Ducati with their bikes being described as ‘the best on the grid’ by Jack Miller who is demonstrating his knowledge of who is paying his bills, they have been heads and shoulders above anyone in the second half of the season with Bagnaia taking five consecutive pole positions, many of those with his teammate Jack Miller in P2.

Today it looked set to be Bagnaia’s once again the Italian rider smashing in some pretty rapid lap times with his best being a 1:30.000 flat in lap two of a run of three, the Italian was putting absolutely everything on the line and this showed when he rounded turn two on his final lap, crashing out of the session causing a yellow flag for many of the riders who wanted to beat his time.

The crash would spell the end of the session for Bagnaia who had hoped he’d done enough to secure pole. Unfortunately for Bagnaia in racing nothing is finished until the session is over, both Jack Miller and Jorge Martin were on rapid laps with Miller a full 0.084 seconds under Bagnaia’s time until he himself would suffer the same fate as his teammate in the fourth sector with a small slip off that ended his chances of pole position.

Jorge Martin however was completely fired up and aiming for pole position, we’ve seen him scrap for pole many times in the past and he is on the edge of winning the ‘Rookie of the year’ title for 2021 with multiple podiums and even a victory to his name, he was able to blast in the only 1:29 lap time we’ve seen all weekend beating Bagnaia’s lap time by only 0.064 seconds, swiping it away after he crashed, talk about kicking a man whilst he’s down eh?!

This meant that we got a Ducati 1-2-3 with Jack Miller placing in third place and four Ducati’s in the top five following an impressive performance from Johann Zarco to take fifth with Joan Mir in fourth. Mir seems to have finally worked out how to qualify high up and it paid dividends at Portimao when he finished in second place from third on the grid, Alex Rins came from Q1 to finish up in P6 ensuring the top six are strictly only Ducati and Suzuki.

Leading the third row was Brad Binder ahead of Fabio Quartararo, seemingly after he won his title Fabio isn’t the same rider we saw at Misano going from fighting at the front only taking front-row starts to placing in P7 and getting angry on the bike, maybe he’s trying to prove a point to Yamaha? After all, he’s been the only consistently fast rider they’ve had all season long, he led Takaaki Nakagami as Valentino Rossi qualifies in P10 for his final ever race in MotoGP sharing his row with Franco Morbidelli and Aleix Espargaro.

Q2 Results – 

Q1 Results –