In what was his most important pair of qualifying sessions so far, Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) produced another masterclass to bag his fourth pole in a row. With Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) suffering his worst premier class qualifying result, match point Sunday Gran Premio Nolan del Made in Italy e dell'Emilia-Romagna is set up to be a thriller.
Check out 10 stats that have emerged from Saturday’s qualifying to get yourselves warmed up for a huge day of racing at Misano.
1. After passing through Q1, Bagnaia has qualified on pole position for the fifth time in MotoGP™ along with Qatar, Aragon, San Marino and Austin this year.
2. This is Bagnaia’s fourth successive pole position. He is the first Ducati rider to take pole in four successive MotoGP™ events since Casey Stoner, with seven in a row in 2008 from the Catalan to the San Marino GPs.
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3. With this pole position, Bagnaia became the first Italian rider to take four pole positions in a row since Valentino Rossi (Petronas Yamaha SRT) from the 2003 Malaysian GP to the 2004 Spanish GP (five in a row).
4. Bagnaia became the fourth rider since the current qualifying format was introduced in 2013 to qualify on pole position after passing through Q1, along with Marc Marquez (Thailand/2018), Maverick Viñales (Valencia/2018) and Jorge Martin (Austria/2021).
5. Since 2007, five riders have won the MotoGP™ race after qualifying on pole position in Misano: Casey Stoner (2007), Valentino Rossi (2009), Dani Pedrosa (2010), Maverick Viñales (2020) and Francesco Bagnaia (2021).
6. Luca Marini (SKY VR46 Avintia) has qualified third as the top rookie as well as top Independent Team rider, taking the maiden front row start of his rookie season in MotoGP™.
7. With Bagnaia, Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo Team) and Marini, this is the first-ever Ducati 1-2-3 in MotoGP™ qualifying.
8. Pol Espargaro (Repsol Honda Team) has qualified fourth as the highest-placed Honda, which is the best qualifying result for a Honda rider at Misano since Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) was third for the San Marino GP in 2017.
9. Franco Morbidelli (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP), who took his maiden MotoGP™ win at the San Marino GP last year, has qualified in sixth place as the top Yamaha rider for his best qualifying since he was fifth at the Catalan GP earlier this year, before he had surgery on his knee and changed teams.
10. After passing through Q1 for the first time since the Valencia GP last year, Championship leader Quartararo has qualified 15th for his worst qualifying result since he stepped up to MotoGP™ in 2019. In addition, this is the first time Quartararo has failed to join Q2 in MotoGP™.