MotoGP: Morbidelli seals first premier class pole as Yamaha locks out front row in Barcelona

The MotoGP World Championship is back in action this weekend for round eight of its 2020 season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Fabio Quartararo had been the fastest rider throughout free practice, and entered qualifying as the man to beat. 

In Q1, Jack Miller dominated the session to advance to Q2 with the top spot. It looked for a while that Miller would be joined by Alex Rins in qualifying for the second session, but a late lap from Takaaki Nakagami displaced the Spaniard and saw the Honda rider advance. 

Q2 proved to be quite a special session for Petronas Yamaha SRT. Firstly, Franco Morbidelli was able to take pole position, his first in MotoGP, and the Italian will be joined by his current teammate, Fabio Quartararo, and his 2021 teammate, Valentino Rossi, who was confirmed by the Petronas team for next season this morning. It is the second Yamaha front row lockout in three races, and further strengthens the YZR-M1’s position as the fastest bike over one lap. 

Not only that, but the race pace of all four Yamaha riders, including Maverick Vinales who qualified fifth, is promising. Of course they will have the likes of Joan Mir to deal with tomorrow, as well as some attention from the KTM riders, but Yamaha have four horses in the race tomorrow and look to be in a good position to take a third successive race win. 

Jack Miller’s Q2 was compromised by his inability to avoid Q1 in free practice. It meant the Australian had only one tyre with which to qualify in the second session. However, the #43 was able to make great use of that sole tyre, and qualified his Desmosedici on the front of the second row. Perhaps Miller does not have the pace of the Yamahas around him in the race, but he can take their track position on the start, which could change the shape of the race dramatically. 

Joining Miller and the aforementioned Vinales on the second row is Johann Zarco, another Ducati rider with a hot lap but maybe not the race pace. However, like Miller, he could upset the Yamaha apple cart with a good start tomorrow and he could find himself in a similar position to Brno, where he finished third, although hopefully for the Frenchman the similarities will end before the point where he receives a long lap penalty. 

That long lap penalty in Brno was taken by the #5 due to contact with Pol Espargaro, and it was Espargaro who the Frenchman displaced with his final lap in Q2 to take the final spot on the second row. Dropping to row three makes Espargaro’s race more complicated, especially with two Ducatis already ahead of him on the grid and with the absence of a ‘holeshot device’ on the KTM. 

Alongside Espargaro will be Joan Mir, the Spaniard once again failing to lift his Suzuki any higher than the third row, although qualifying has not been a strong point of the Suzuki since Bridgestone left the championship and they no longer had softer tyres as concessions. The #36 does have great pace, though, and even if he starts slowly could be in a similar position to the one in which he found himself in both Misano races: coming strong at the end and chasing down the podium in the last 10 laps. We also saw in Misano how strong Mir can be in overtaking, and arguably Barcelona is a track where it is easier to overtake compared to Misano, so despite another average-at-best qualifying, Mir should not be discounted. 

On the back of the third row is Danilo Petrucci, whose pace looked to be suffering in FP4. It doesn’t look like the #9 can dip below the high-1’41s with a used rear tyre. In Misano, Petrucci became something of a road block after five laps or so, and the same could be the case tomorrow.

The one lap speed of Brad Binder has been one of his weak points in 2020. The rookie seemed to turn this around this weekend, though, and was fast over one lap almost all weekend. That went away in Q2, though, where the #33 was only able to manage 10th, 0.861 slower than Morbidelli’s pole effort. Still, Binder always seems to be able to find something on race day, and perhaps he can do the same tomorrow, although he will have his work cut out from the fourth row, where he will be joined by Takaaki Nakagami and his teammate for next year, Miguel Oliveira. 

The late lap from Nakagami that saw him advance to Q2 from Q1 meant that Alex Rins was the fastest rider to miss out on a chance to qualify on the front four rows. The #42 will have a lot of work to do from 13th on the grid, and his life will no doubt be made more difficult by the presence of Francesco Bagnaia alongside him on the grid. Joining them on row five will be Aleix Espargaro. 

Cal Crutchlow was sixth-fastest in Q1, and the Briton will be joined by championship leader Andrea Dovizioso on row six, the Italian only managing seventh in Q1. It is hard to see the points lead remaining in the hands of the #04 by the end of the race tomorrow. The old former teammates at Tech 3 and Ducati will be joined by Alex Marquez on the sixth row, the #73 is becoming familiar company for ‘Undaunted Dovi’.

Iker Lecuona has suffered this weekend with three crashes before qualifying started, and that perhaps explaining his lack of speed in qualifying, the #27 only managing 19th on the grid. Alongside the Red Bull KTM Tech 3 rider will be Stefan Bradl and Bradley Smith; whilst Tito Rabat qualified 22nd last, and will start alone from row eight tomorrow.