Alex Marquez edged out his elder brother Marc Marquez to claim pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix, as Ducati dominated Saturday morning’s qualifying at Sepang.
While reigning MotoGP champion Marc Marquez had been the fastest rider at Sepang on Friday, Gresini’s Alex Marquez went quicker when it mattered, beating him to the top spot in Q2 by just 0.070s.
Pedro Acosta completed the front row for KTM, while Ai Ogura emerged as the top Aprilia rider in fourth ahead of Marco Bezzecchi.
Just minutes into the start of Q1, Aprilia announced that championship contender Jorge Martin will sit out the remainder of the weekend due to injury, boosting Marc Marquez’s hopes of winning a 10th title.
Marquez had already set the pace in Friday practice, but as Q2 began it was his younger brother Alex who laid the initial benchmark, posting a time of 1m56.697s in the first five minutes to take to the top.
Marc Marquez also managed to break the 1m57s barrier on his first run, but ended up more than three tenths of the reigning Malaysian GP winner.
Pedro Acosta emerged as Ducati’s closest rival in the first half of the session, while Marco Bezzecchi and Ai Ogura stood fifth and seventh on the two surviving Aprilia bikes.
As the second runs began, the Noale-based manufacturer rose to the fore, with Bezzecchi edging out Alex Marquez by 0.029s before Ogura went even quicker on a 1m56.617s.
However, Ducati still had more speed on tap, with Marc Marquez demoting Ogura to second despite suffering some wild moments on his factory GP26.
Utimately, it was Alex Marquez who ended qualifying on time, the 30-year-old asserting his authority at Sepang – where he won last year – with a time of 1m56.493s.
With no late changes to the order at the front, the Marquez brothers locked out the top two spots on the grid, with Acosta continuing his strong form from Friday to grab third place.
Acosta’s late effort relegated Aprilia to the second row, with Ogura ending up fourth for Trackhouse ahead of factory rider Bezzecchi.
Fabio di Giannantonio wound up sixth for VR46, while Tech3’s Enea Bastianini ended up seventh after topping FP3 earlier on Saturday.
Honda’s charge was led by Johann Zarco in eighth, the Frenchman coming from Q1 to book a spot on the third row.
Francesco Bagnaia also progressed from Q1 but smashed the windscreen of his Ducati in anger after losing half a second in the third sector. He eventually qualified ninth, behind the year-old GP25 of VR46 rider Franco Morbidelli.
Joan Mir (Honda) and Maverick Vinales (Tech3) completed the top 12.
Factory Honda rider Luca Marini missed out on a Q2 slot by seven hundredths of a second, ending up 13th on the grid ahead of the LCR-entered RC213V of Honda rookie Diogo Moreira.
Brad Binder couldn’t join the rest of the KTM contingent in the second part of qualifying, finishing almost eight tenths off the pace in 15th.
Yamaha’s dismal weekend at Sepang continued on Saturday, with the four M1s languishing at the bottom of the grid. The best of the Yamaha quartet was Pramac’s Jack Miller in 16th, with factory riders Alex Rins and Fabio Quartararo following him in 17th and 18th respectively.
Augusto Fernandez, substituting for the injured Toprak Razgatlioglu, was the slowest rider in a depleted 20-bike MotoGP field, just behind the Gresini Ducati of Iker Lecuona.
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