Alex Marquez nailed a late call to switch to slick tyres in the closing stages of qualifying for the Argentina Grand Prix to secure a maiden MotoGP pole position.
The session started off damp as a result of a brief rain shower prior to the start of qualifying and the early stages of Q1, meaning all 12 riders within the pole shootout headed out on medium-compound wet rubber.
Johann Zarco managed to tame the tricky conditions best with a time of 1:46.834s ahead of Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales, with Marquez ending the opening runs down in seventh.
The Gresini pilot though – along with reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia and VR46 pairing Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini – elected to take a gamble and opt for slicks for the final run as the track began to slowly dry out, the other rider’s deciding to plump for a new set of wets.
The call for wets initially looked to be the way to go as Franco Morbidelli blew Zarco’s earlier effort out of the water, though Bezzecchi’s slicks switched on at the perfect moment as his final gambit of 1:44.053s fired him to the top of the times, though Marquez had a little more up his sleeve to snatch away the top spot by just 0.172s.
With his other two dry-tyre rivals failing to get anywhere near the Spaniard, a first ever premier class pole was his – meaning he will start at the point for Saturday afternoon’s sprint race as well as Sunday’s full-length grand prix.
This came despite a late crash in Q1 where he mid-judged an undercut on Honda’s Joan Mir at the final bend, with the crash also causing his primary Desmosedici to burst into flames on his way back to the pits after remounting.
Bezzecchi’s strong run was enough to keep him second on the grid, while Bagnaia also improved on his slick rubber to complete the front row and a Ducati 1-2-3 at the head of the field.
Morbidelli enjoyed his best run for a long while with a superb fourth for Yamaha ahead of Vinales, while Zarco ended up slipping to sixth by the end of the session.
Marini could only improve to seventh on his slicks ahead of Jorge Martin’s Pramac-run entry, with Friday pacesetter Aleix Espargaro grabbing ninth on the sister factory Aprilia ahead of Fabio Quartararo, the Frenchman joining Marquez in graduating from Q1.
LCR Honda duo Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Rins rounded off the pole shootout combatants, the former getting the better of his new team-mate by nearly half-a-second in the end.
RNF Aprilia’s Raul Fernandez meanwhile ended up as best of the rest in 13th overall having narrowly missed out on stealing Quartararo’s Q2 passage, the Spaniard just heading fellow sophomore racer Fabio Di Gianantonio on his Gresini Ducati.
KTM once again looked to be struggling around the Termas de Rio Hondo’s long curves, with the Austrian marque’s best-placed rider Brad Binder a lowly 15th on the grid just ahead of fellow RC16 pilot’s Jack Miller and Augusto Fernandez, the trio heading only Mir in the 18-man line-up.
Keyword: Marquez nails slick tyre call to secure Argentina MotoGP pole