Bagnaia grabs German MotoGP pole, Miller penalised

Francesco Bagnaia has qualified on pole position for the German MotoGP, as factory Ducati team-mate Jack Miller incurred a long lap penalty.

Miller, who earned sixth on the starting grid at the Sachsenring, attracted the sanction as a result of a crash he had in the Free Practice 4 session which immediately precedes qualifying.

The Queenslander lost the front of his Desmosedici at Turn 13 while there were still yellow flags out for Aprilia Racing’s Aleix Espargaro, who had crashed in similar fashion just prior.

Later in Qualifying 2, Bagnaia kicked things off with a 1:20.098s while Miller was 0.056s off the pace at the end of the first runs.

When they went again, the Italian improved to a 1:20.064s then a 1:19.931s on consecutive laps, and while the latter was not quite on his lap record pace from Free Practice 3, it would be good enough for pole.

Championship leader Fabio Quartararo ultimately claimed second with a 1:20.007s on his Monster Energy Yamaha and Johann Zarco was third with a 1:20.030s on a Prima Pramac Ducati.

Aleix Espargaro ended up fourth, Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini Ducati) came from Qualifying 1 to take fifth all-told, and Miller (Ducati Lenovo) wound up sixth on a 1:20.150s.

The rest of the top 10 was Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Ducati), Jorge Martin (Prima Pramac Ducati), Maverick Viñales (Aprilia Racing), and Takaaki Nakagami (Idemitsu LCR Honda), who had a late crash at Turn 1.

Also on Row 4 were Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Ducati) in 11th via Q1, and Joan Mir (Suzuki Ecstar) in 12th, while Pol Espargaro (Repsol Honda) will start 13th after coming up 0.004s shy of advancing from the first stanza.

Remy Gardner qualified 21st and Tech3 KTM team-mate Raul Fernandez 22nd, while Suzuki Ecstar’s Alex Rins withdrew from the event after FP3 due to pain in his fractured wrist.

Race start is scheduled for Sunday night at 22:00 AEST.

Qualifying: German MotoGP