MotoGP: Quartararo takes fifth straight pole in Barcelona qualifying

Qualifying for the MotoGP Catalan Grand Prix, round seven of the 2021 World Championship, took place at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Franco Morbidelli was fastest in combined practice.

Q1 was electric. Marc Marquez re-employed his supposedly unfavoured, yet necessary, tactic of picking a rider to drag him into Q2. Last week Maverick Vinales was the tow truck, but in his absence Marquez chose Ducati’s Jack Miller. Miller’s calm and relaxed personality served him well in this situation. Where Vinales imploded, Miller simply accepted the situation and got on with the job. The Australian went fastest in his final lap, and Marquez took advantage of his tow to go second. It did not last long, though, as the #44 Repsol Honda of Pol Espargaro out-thought Marquez. Espargaro knew that Marquez would find the rider to follow, so he simply followed Marquez, at a reasonable distance, and used the marker of his eight-times World Champion teammate to dump the #93 out of Q2 and take the place for himself. 

Q2 was, surprisingly, less exciting than Q1. Fabio Quartararo set pole early on, and his second run was ruined by yellow flags, so it was down to everyone else to beat him. Jack Miller came close on his first lap, but a crash at turn three on his second ended his chances, and Johann Zarco lost too much time in the final sector to do better than third. 

That meant that Quartararo secured pole position for the fifth race in succession, a remarkable run of Saturday form for the championship leader. Additionally, the two Ducatis of Miller and Zarco who are starting alongside him tomorrow have nothing like the pace of the Frenchman, so if he can deal with them early on he could have as comfortable a time as he did in Mugello. 

The only rider with anything remotely similar to the pace of Quartararo is Franco Morbidelli. But Barcelona has one of the longest runs to turn one from the grid of the season; Morbidelli has the slowest bike on the grid; and he is starting from fifth. Realistically, unless Quartararo gets majorly held up by the Ducatis in the early laps, there is not much hope for Morbidelli. 

Even then, the Italian will have to deal with Miguel Oliveira, who qualified ahead of the #21 in fourth place. Certainly, it seems that the positive steps KTM made in Mugello have been confirmed in Barcelona, and at the moment it is the Portuguese who is taking the most profit from these latest updates. 

Completing the second row will be Maverick Vinales, but with Brad Binder, Aleix Espargaro and Francesco Bagnaia all on faster bikes behind him, it could be much worse for Vinales by turn one, and the struggles of the Spaniard in overtaking have been well documented over past seasons. 

With two Yamahas on the row ahead of them, those three aforementioned riders coming from the third row tomorrow will fancy their chances of making up some early ground on the run to turn one. Certainly, the power of the Ducati should see Bagnaia progressing from ninth, and it is no secret that the KTM’s new fuel has provided some extra punch for the RC16 in a straight line, which should help out Binder from eighth.

There is only one Suzuki in action this week following Alex Rins’ cycling accident on Thursday, and it will be starting from 10th. To put Joan Mir’s qualifying problems into context, the only riders who were slower than him in Q2 were the apparently imminently retiring Valentino Rossi who was on his second bike after crashing at turn four on his first run, and Pol Espargaro, who crashed on his only run at the end of the session. Mir has a strong race pace, but as ever his task is made unnecessarily difficult by a poor grid slot, and it’s likely that his 40-point deficit to Quartararo in the championship will grow even further tomorrow.  

As a result of Pol Espargaro’s late lap and good track position in Q1, Marc Marquez failed to make Q2, and will start 13th tomorrow. Joining the #93 on the fifth row will be his Honda stablemate, Takaaki Nakagami, and compatriot Jorge Martin, as the #88 returns this weekend from the injuries he sustained back in Portimao.

Iker Lecuona topped Q1 early on, but crashed on his second run at turn nine. Once again, turn nine proved itself to be one of the more concerning corners on the track, as both Lecuona and his #27 KTM reached the barrier. The Spaniard was fortunate that his machine bounced over him, and not on him, after hitting the fence. The early ending to his qualifying meant that he could not get a time in on his second run, and will start from 16th, ahead of Enea Bastianini and Danilo Petrucci on the sixth row. 

Luca Marini has not been having an easy weekend. The grip problems that saw him finish 50 seconds off the winner in Mugello have not been solved in Barcelona, which makes sense considering it is perhaps the circuit with the lowest grip of the year. 

Marini’s struggles put into context those of Alex Marquez, who qualified behind Marini (10th in Q1, for 20th on the grid) on the #73 LCR Honda. It is becoming a horrible season for the second-year Spaniard, and tomorrow only Lorenzo Savadori will be behind him on the grid.