Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira (KTM) will start from 19th position for the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix, the 19th and penultimate race of the season, to be held on Sunday at Sepang.
Oliveira had been 15th in the three free practice sessions, so he had to go through the first qualifying phase, Q1.
There, the Portuguese driver achieved only the ninth record, lapping in 1.59.699 minutes, remaining 1.054 seconds behind the fastest Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), leader of the championship, who also had to go through Q1.
Bagnaia and the Spaniard Marc Márquez (Honda) were the fastest in this stage and advanced to Q2, noting a certain nervousness on the part of the Italian rider, who could be proclaimed world champion for the first time on Sunday.
The Ducati rider had to move on to Q1 after doing exactly the same time as Italian-Brazilian Franco Morbidelli (Yamaha) in the third session. Morbidelli had the advantage on the second fastest lap and, with that, moved him into Q2.
In this phase, the Spaniard Jorge Martín (Ducati) proved to be a knockdown for the rivals, conquering the ‘pole position’ with a new record in the Malaysian circuit.
Martin set the best lap in 1.57.790 minutes, subtracting 0.513 seconds from the previous record, which had belonged to Frenchman Fábio Quartararo (Yamaha) since 2019. The Spaniard was thus the first and only one to lap in 57.
Italian Enea Bastianini (Ducati) was second with 0.456 seconds, with Spaniard Marc Márquez (Honda) third with 0.664 seconds.
Francesco Bagnaia crashed and did not get past ninth place, in a race in which he needs to be in the top five to have a mathematical chance of winning the title.
Fábio Quartararo, second in the championship, 14 points behind Bagnaia, did even worse, finishing 12th.
The Spanish Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) was 10th, after also falling on the last attempt.
In the drivers’ World Championship classification, with two races remaining, Bagnaia has 233 points, compared to 219 for Quartararo and 206 for Espargaró.
Source: TSF
