Ducati’s Marc Marquez smashed the Balaton Park Circuit lap record twice yesterday to claim pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix as his teammate Francesco Bagnaia endured his worst qualifying session of the season.
Marquez, who leads the championship, would be joined on the front row by Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi and VR46 Racing’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, both of whom had to battle through the Q1 session to reach the pole shootout.
“It’s a surprise [to see them on the front row] and at the same time, no, because we cannot forget that we’re in a new circuit,” Marquez said.
Photo: AFP
“Every time you put new tires, you find new limits. So they were coming Q1 and the fact that they already did two timed attacks, they had another reference,” he said. “So they were super fast, but we did our job. So happy to start on the front row and especially in pole position.”
The session provided plenty of drama, with KTM’s Pedro Acosta — fastest in Friday practice — crashing early and destroying his bike.
Acosta sprinted to the barrier and commandeered one of the bikes used to ferry riders back to the paddock. Although he was able to put in one more lap, he could only manage seventh fastest with his reserve bike.
Marquez responded to his rivals closing in on his initial lap record by going out again and setting another benchmark time of 1 minute, 36.518 seconds for his eighth pole of the season.
His brother Alex, second in the championship and 142 points behind, qualified 11th.
However, the Gresini Racing rider would start 14th after receiving a three-place grid penalty for riding slowly on the racing line during practice and disrupting another rider.
The biggest shock of the afternoon came from Bagnaia, who sits third in the championship, but has struggled in recent rounds.
The twice-champion could only manage 15th fastest, missing out on Q2 for the first time this season, and the Italian was seen shaking his head after his disappointing lap time.
“It’s obvious that we are not happy about this result,” Ducati manager Davide Tardozzi said.
“It will be a very, very difficult race — on the psychological side and because it’s very hard to overtake in these race tracks when starting from 15th position. It is very, very difficult.”
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