Yamaha Factory racing rider Maverick Vinales smashed the Misano lap record to claim the pole position for the 2020 San Marino MotoGP as Petronas Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo took the second and third pole positions.
In the qualifying session that expectations were high that Yamaha will continue its dominance, Vinales unbelievably smashed Jorge Lorenzo’s fastest lap record of 1m31.629s made back in 2018, by recording 1m31.411s leading a yamaha 1-2-3-4 in the second qualifying session.
Maverick Vinales had earlier on set a pace of 1m32.130s, but it was quickly subdued by his teammate Valentino Rossi. The 25-year-old FP3 pacesetter held provisional pole for all of 30 seconds, as Quartararo concluded the opening run of Q2 fastest of all with a 1m31.791s. Vinales then headed out for his second run and returned to top spot with a 1m31.787s with just under five minutes remaining to the conclusion of the session.
Franco Morbidelli fired in a 1m31.723s to take over provisional pole on the 2019 Yamaha bike but the lead was short-lived. On the other hand, Vinales guided his works team to record 1m31.411s claiming his second pole of the season and back to back Saturday successes at Misano. The Spaniard went ahead to set off the air bag in his leathers during his animated celebrations.
Morbidelli did his best qualifying result of the year after holding the second position and will be starting next to his teammate Quartararo in the front row.
Valentino Rossi got the 4th position missing Quartararo by only 0.086 seconds. Pramac’s Jack Miller rounded off the top five as his teammate Francesco Bagnaia came 6th, having only 0.002 seconds splitting the two riders.
The first Suzuki rider, Alex Rins was 7th as his teammate Joan Mir followed after running off track On the Rio corner around turn 4 as Andrea Dovizioso took the 9th position as the first Ducatti. Avintia Racing Johann Zarco rounded the top ten.
Pol Espargaro held the 11th position despite passing his Q1, but the rider had experienced a crash at turn 15 which affected his performance. KTM Tech 3 rider Miguel Oliveira took the 12th place also being another rider who had quite good performance in Q1.
Aprilia’s rider Alex Espargaro took pos 13 as Takaaki Nakagami was the top Honda rider holding the 14th position as his teammate Crutchlow retired due to his recently operated arm.
Danilo Petrucci will start 15th ahead of KTM’s Brad Binder and Avintia’s Tito Rabat. The grid will be completed by a disappointed Iker Lecuona (Tech3), Honda’s Stefan Bradl, Bradley Smith (Aprilia) and the sister factory team Honda of Alex Marquez.
