After 2 years of absence on the calendar, the championship take us back again to Thermas del Rio Hondo” for the 3rd round of the season. At a track usually know for its high speed corners and straigts. A rematkable absence was from Marc Marquez, after the huge accident he suffered on the warm-up of last raceday.

Q1 session started with a returning Takaaki Nakagami at the top of the standings, after missing the last race due to covid protocols, followed closely by Enea Bastianini and last race winner Miguel Oliveira closing the provisional top 3.

At the last minutes of the session, the standings started to fluctuate, As Pol Espargaro took a late top spot clinch after a strong lap, with Nakagami behind by just +0.022. Enea Bastianini and Francés Bagnaia missed a Q2 spot and will have to start from 13th and 14th respectively.

Q1 Results:

13. Enea Bastianini /// 14. Francesco Bagnaia /// 15. Franco Morbidelli
16. Miguel Oliveira /// 17. Marco Bezzecchi /// 18. Andrea Dovizioso
19. Álex Márquez /// 20. Fabio Di Giannantonio /// 21. Raúl Fernández
22. Remy Gardner /// 23. Darryn Binder ///24. Stefan Bradl

Next qualy session saw Quartararo, Miller, Zarco and Martin as the main candidates for the pole position. As the first minutes passed by, it was the Spaniard on the Ducati who was leading the standings, Jack Miller followed closely on 2nd and Maverick Viñales was looking strong at the Aprillia bike, on a provisional 3rd place. It was eventually confirmed after his teammates Pol Espargaro check the provisional pole just before the end of the frist stint, Jack Miller suffered the first incident of the session.

With only a few attempts to go, the battle for pole became an intense one, as Jorge Martin was flying on a fast lap and on provisional pole with less than a minute to go, it seems that the Spaniard was going to grab a back to back pole, but a fellow Spaniard on the Aprillia had something else to say, as Pol Espargaro clinched the first pole position for Aprillia on a massive lap, demoting Jorge Martin to the 2nd place and a surprisingly performance from Luca Marini, closing the front row.

Q2 Results:

1. Aleix Espargaro /// 2. Jorge Martín /// 3. Luca Marini
4. Pol Espargaro /// 5. Maverick Viñales
6. Fabio Quartararo /// 7. Álex Rins /// 8. Joan Mir /// 9. Johann Zarco
10. Takaaki Nakagami /// 11. Jack Miller ///12. Brad Binder

A unexpected result that saw Pol Espargaro getting his third MotoGP career pole and the first one since 2015. This weekend could mean a significative statement from Aprillia to join the top teams, for the battle to gain big results on this season.