Pecco Bagnaia is giving his all and keeping his title hopes alive and has just secured pole position for the Barcelona Solidarity GP, with Jorge Martín taking fourth and starting from the second row of the grid.
The first lap in the time attack saw Bagnaia fastest with a 1:39.583s, with Marquéz second and 0.037s away. Fabio Quartararo was third, Enea Bastianini fourth, Maverick Viñales fifth and Jorge Martín seventh.
In the second session Bagnaia improved his time to 1:38.835s, Márquez was second and now Martín was third.
The session was about halfway through and with it the final preparations in the garage, with Bagnaia leading ahead of Márquez, Martín was third, Quartararo fourth, Pedro Acosta fifth and Viñales sixth.
Needing everything and everyone to be at their best, Bagnaia remained the leader for the first few minutes of the restart, with Márquez 0.138s behind and Martín 0.241s behind.
There were two minutes to go and the session was in a phase of apparent calm and serenity, but certainly about to strike.
Soon after, Franco Morbidelli beat Martín to third and was on the front row of the grid, with Martín in fourth. Who was threatening first place was Aleix Espargaró, who is doing his last GP as a full-time MotoGP rider.
However, the Spaniard came within 0.055s of Bagnaia, and it was close…
Pecco Bagnaia thus secured pole position, and will be joined by Espargaró and Márquez on the front row, with Martín on the second.