Pecco Bagnaia lived up to expectations securing pole position for his home Italian MotoGP, the defending MotoGP World Champion seemingly spurred on by his irritation towards a shadowing Marc Marquez.

Twelve months on from taking a treasured home win at Mugello en route to winning Ducati’s first world title in 15 years, the session demonstrated precisely how far Bagnaia has come year-on-year.

Having dominated free practice, Bagnaia was always considered the favourite, an opinion shared by Marquez, who leaned into his oft-criticised tactic of trailing one of the fast riders to pull him along to a fast qualifying time.

Waiting until Bagnaia had come round to start a lap before exiting the pit-lane, Bagnaia promptly missed his braking point for Turn 1 before catching up with Marquez and angrily gesticulating towards him.

A stoic Marquez remained unfazed and tucked in behind the Ducati, with the tactic at one stage looking set to achieve its objective by securing the fastest time.

However, Bagnaia - no doubt motivated to shake off his rival - upped the pace in the second-half of the lap, powering down the home straight to stop the clock at 1m 44.855s, a full +0.3s under the existing lap record held by Fabio Quartararo.

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With Marc benefitting to secure second on the grid, he will be joined on the front row by his brother Alex Marquez, who scored a fine third after coming through Q1.

The Gresini Ducati rider hinted at a strong final result after cruising through Q1 by a comfortable margin before proceeding to make his pitch for pole position, quickest of all coming into the final sector.

Placing him third, he will start the Sprint Race from that position on the front row, but will get away from sixth in the feature race as a result of the penalty he received in the French MotoGP for forcing another rider off line.

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That means Jack Miller - though fourth on the timesheets - will start the feature race on Sunday from the front row for KTM, the Australian joining Marquez in showing strongly having started the session in Q1.

Jorge Martin and Johann Zarco will start fifth and seventh on their Pramac Ducati GP23s, sandwiching title contender Marco Bezzecchi, who will be chasing down Bagnaia from sixth place.

Aleix Espargaro gritted through the pain barrier of his injured ankle to fly the flag for Aprilia in eighth, while Alex Rins made good on his strong Friday efforts to land a spot on the outside of row three.

Brad Binder gets away from tenth after missing the final minutes due to a crash at Turn 11, the South African ahead of the injured Luca Marini and Enea Bastianini, the returning factory Ducati rider ruining his afternoon with an early spill.

Elsewhere, Maverick Vinales just missed out on Q2 and will therefore start 13th, ahead of Franco Morbidelli, who out-qualified Yamaha team-mate Fabio Quartararo, the 2021 MotoGP World Champion's woeful qualifying results continuing in 15th as he misses Q2 for the third race in succession.

Others to hit problems included Raul Fernandez, the RNF Aprilia rider unable to build on a promising Friday when a crash at Turn 2 left him 20th, while Augusto Fernandez soldiered on in Q1 after destroying his GasGas Tech 3 in a crash during the preceding Practice session

Italian MotoGP, Mugello | Qualifying Results

Saturday | Conditions - Warm, Overcast