Two Aprilias on the front row after qualifying as factory Ducatis continue to lag behind
Aprilia MotoGP star Marco Bezzecchi blitzed the all-time track record to take pole position for the Indonesian Grand Prix, while Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia struggled to ninth and 16th respectively.
Having already enjoyed a four-tenth margin over the rest of the field on Friday, Bezzecchi carried that momentum into qualifying, setting a blistering lap time of 1m28.832s to continue his strong run in the second half of the season.
The Italian was quick from the off in Q2, setting a benchmark of 1m29.396s on his first run. This put him more than a tenth clear of KTM’s Pedro Acosta at the halfway point of the sessions, while Honda also showed strong form early on with Luca Marini provisionally grabbing a spot on the front row in third.
After coming through Q1, Marc Marquez languished in 10th on the factory Ducati with a best effort of 1m30.460s, although there was clearly room for improvement as he had lapped within the 1m29s bracket in the first part of qualifying.
As the second run began, Bezzecchi moved the goalposts further, becoming the first rider in history to lap within the 1m28s bracket at the Mandalika Circuit and smashing current teammate Jorge Martin’s all-time circuit record by over two tenths of a second.
No rider could come anywhere near Bezzecchi in the next few minutes, and with a second crash for Fabio Quartararo bringing out the yellow flags towards the death of the session, the Aprilia rider sealed his third pole of the season by just under four tenths of a second.
As was the case on Friday, Gresini rookie Fermin Aldeguer ended up as the closest rival to Bezzecchi, finishing a strong second on the GP24 after improving to a 1m29.230s.
Trackhouse rider Raul Fernandez made it two Aprilia bikes on the front row, as he took third place with a time that was just half a tenth shy of Aldeguer’s flyer.
Alex Rins enjoyed his best qualifying result of the 2025 season as he put his factory Yamaha fourth on the grid ahead of Acosta and the top Honda of Luca Marini.
A crash for Alex Marquez at Turn 12 with three minutes remaining left the Gresini star in seventh place, with Quartararo ending up eighth after damaging both his bikes in an incident-packed end to qualifying.
Marc Marquez, Ducati Team
Newly-crowned Marc Marquez champion managed to improve on his time in the final part of the session, getting down to a 1m29.773s, but it was only good enough for a spot on the outside of the third row.
In 10th place came the Pramac Yamaha of Miguel Oliveira, with Q1 pacesetter Fabio di Giannantonio (VR46) and Joan Mir (Honda) joining him on the fourth row in 11th and 12th respectively.
Di Giannatonio’s team-mate Franco Morbidelli narrowly missed out on a Q2 berth by just 0.048s and will start 13th, ahead of Pramac Yamaha’s Jack Miller and KTM’s Brad Binder.11:45:08
Francesco Bagnaia’s difficult run continued in Indonesia, as he was eliminated in Q1 for the third time in five weekends, leaving him 16th on the grid.
His former teammate Enea Bastianini finished 17th on the Tech3 KTM after crashing late on at Turn 1 - an incident that led to yellow flags being deployed in sector 1 just as most riders were on their final flying laps.
LCR duo Johann Zarco and Somkiat Chantra and Bastianini’s team-mate Maverick Vinales completed the depleted 20-bike grid.
MotoGP Indonesian GP - Q2 results:
Q1 results:
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Category: General Sports
