Monster Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales has taken pole for tomorrow’s Misano MotoGP race and led a Yamaha lockout of the top four places.
The Spaniard broke Jorge Lorenzo’s outright lap record by two tenths as he recorded a 1’31.411 with a medium/soft setup and no-one had an answer.
A Petronas Yamaha took second place but this time it was Franky Morbidelli chasing pole with a 1’31.723. The Italian had a hard/soft setup on his M1 and it was enough to keep team-mate and points leader Fabio Quartararo.
The Frenchman just didn’t have enough to do anything about his team-mate for next year and finished 0.380s off the pace.
Valentino Rossi, fresh from leading free practice three this morning, was only 0.086s behind the man with whom he was swap places in 2021.
The first non-Iwata machine came in the form of Jack Miller on the Pramac Ducati GP20. The Australian ended six-tenths off the pace and had team-mate Pecco Bagnaia - still walking with a crutch after breaking his leg at Jerez - just behind to complete row two.
Ecstar Suzuki’s pairing of Alex Rins and Joan Mir were split by 0.012s in seventh and eighth with the first works Ducati - belonging to Andrea Dovizioso - in ninth. Johann Zarco completed the top ten.
Pol Espargaro fought his way through qualifying one only to crash on his first flying lap in Q2, bouncing unhurt into the gravel at turn 15. He will start from 11th with Miguel Oliveira, also a Q1 refugee, 12th on the Red Bull KTM Tech3.
Aleix Espargaro, Taka Nakagami and Danilo Petrucci rounded out the top 15 with Brad Binder surprisingly off the pace in 16th. Alex Marquez, still the only Repsol Honda on the grid, was last.
