Fabio Quartararo stormed to the first pole position of his title defending campaign in Indonesia by a commanding 0.213s as Marc Marquez and Joan Mir both crashed in Q1.
Quartararo immediately picked up from where he left off on Saturday after heading FP2 on Friday afternoon, the reigning MotoGP world champion recording a dominant 1:31.227s tour early on in Q2 that left him nearly four-tenths of a second clear of second-placed Francesco Bagnaia, the M1 continuing to suit the high-speed curvy nature of the Mandalika International Circuit.
With the circuit still proving tricky to ride consistently – due mainly to the heat as well as dirtiness left over from an earlier rain shower – improvements from his rivals were expected, though the Frenchman managed to put his provisional pole even further out of reach as he banged in a 1:31.067s on his final effort.
Jorge Martin looked to be closest to stealing away Quartararo’s glory but ultimately lacked speed across the second half of the tour, in the end taking the chequered flag 0.213s behind the Yamaha racer to collect second on the grid, the Spaniard joined by Pramac team-mate Johann Zarco on the front row.
Brad Binder continued his Qatar heroics to put his KTM fourth for the first Indonesian Grand Prix in 25 years ahead of Losail victor Enea Bastianini, while Bagnaia failed to find improvement on his second attempt and was thus shuffled back to sixth.
Miguel Oliveira was next up on the other KTM as Alex Rins salvaged eighth in what is turning out to be a tough weekend for Suzuki, while Jack Miller bagged ninth ahead of Aleix Espargaro, the Aprilia man looking like a front row challenger before crashing on his last attempt.
Fabio Di Gianantonio was best rookie in 11th after impressively managing to join Bagnaia in graduating from Q1, while Franco Morbidelli failed to recover from an early pole shootout crash en-route to 12th.
VR46 Ducati pairing Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi meanwhile narrowly missed out on stealing Di Gianantonio’s Q2 spot, the latter in particular looking a dead cert to grab the position before crashing on his last lap just two corners from home.
Marquez meanwhile struggled to even record a lap after suffering two separate crashes while trying to improve on his opening Q1 gambit, the six-time premier class world champion going down on his second machine at Turn 13 on his second tour before then crashing again on his primary Honda at Turn 12 on his last attempt having had to overtake fellow RC213-V rider Takaaki Nakagami.
This means he will start 15th on Sunday just ahead of team-mate Pol Espargaro who also struggled to get a lap together, while Joan Mir will take the start from 18th after continuing to lack speed with his GSX-RR.
Andrea Dovizioso was 17th on his RNF Racing Yamaha, while Maverick Vinales’ learning curve with Aprilia continues to look tricky as he managed only 20th just ahead of Tech 3 KTM duo Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner.
Keyword: Quartararo flies to Mandalika pole as Marquez, Mir crash en-route to 15th and 18th