MISANO ADRITICO, Italy, Sept 21 (Askume) – Francesco Bagnaia broke his own record by securing pole position for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix on Saturday, setting his own lap record at Misano, while Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini completed the top three on their Ducati bikes, with one on the front row.
Martin initially claimed provisional pole position with his own lap record, but Bagnaia took over two-tenths of a second with a time of 1:30.031 to take his second at the track in two weeks.
Bagnaia was approaching his 100th race in the top class, while Ducati was looking for its 100th win, when the Italian fell on the qualifying lap at around 1:30am, one could only smile.
“Yesterday I said it could be difficult because of the temperatures and that was more or less the case because the left-hand bends were difficult to go the way we wanted,” he said.
“But I’m happy because in both situations the most important thing is to stick around and we are in the best position to win (the sprint) this afternoon.”
Misano, which also hosted the San Marino Grand Prix two weeks ago, will host two races this year after MotoGP cancelled scheduled races due to flooding at the Sokol circuit in Almaty, Kazakhstan .
Pramac Racing’s Martin, who leads Bagnaia by seven points in the championship, will be looking to improve his position at Misano after a bike change during the San Marino Grand Prix backfired and he finished 15th.
“Peco (Bagnaia) and I are very close in terms of speed,” Martin said.
Brad Binder was initially third on the KTM, but Bania’s factory Ducati teammate Bastianini came home third at the end of the second qualifying session.
MotoGP newcomer Pedro Acosta was fifth in Tech3, with VR46 Racing’s Marco Bezzecchi second.
Marc Marquez won the San Marino Grand Prix, but he crashed again in the second quarter and was unable to set a fast lap despite changing bikes, the Spaniard finished seventh and started from the third row.
