Pedro Acosta “happy and calm”| Bagnaia poised to punish Martin’s mistake?
Pedro Acosta starts from a MotoGP pole for the first time, Francesco Bagnaia nine places clear of title rival Jorge Martin.
You need a little luck in racing sometimes and a track limits penalty for Marc Marquez handed Pedro Acosta his first MotoGP pole position at Motegi on Saturday.
The GASGAS Tech3 rookie had been only 0.150s behind Marquez’s cancelled lap record and, most impressively, 0.643s clear of the next best KTM of future team-mate Brad Binder.
Fourth in Friday practice, Acosta advanced to second place on Saturday morning and then P1 in qualifying.
“Super nice! It's a long time that I didn’t see the '1' in front of my bike [in parc ferme],” smiled Acosta.
“We have to be happy because we see that in the last 4-5 races, we can put everything together and are getting more competitive.
“I’m happy because we are getting closer to the targets we want to achieve. For this, we need to be happy and calm for this afternoon.”
Crucially, Acosta also looks to have the mid 1m 44s race pace to challenge the likes of Francesco Bagnaia, quickest in final practice and the strongest on used tyres this morning.
While Acosta was a contender throughout the damp qualifying, Bagnaia initially struggled for grip and abandoned his opening run early.
But Bagnaia was transformed after the tyre change, securing what became second on the grid despite yellow flags on his next lap.
Those yellows were in response to a mistake by title leader Jorge Martin, who crashed out at Turn 6 and will start from just eleventh on the grid.
Martin’s mistake has presented Bagnaia with a big opportunity to regain ground in the title chase. The factory Ducati star will begin this afternoon’s Sprint 21 points behind the Pramac Ducati rider.
“Super important,” Bagnaia said of the qualifying result. “At the start, I thought it was getting wet because something was wrong on my bike.
“But I decided to stop and when I restarted everything was okay again. So I was able to do a very good lap time.
“I missed a bit on the last lap but there were yellow flags in any case.
“Happy overall. We have a good chance today and tomorrow with this kind of grid [Martin 11th] and we have to take it in a good way.”
Maverick Vinales made it three brands on the front row with a surprise third for Aprilia.
“I’m really happy and satisfied about the performance,” Vinales said. “We know this is not the best track for Aprilia but we keep making steps forward and when I feel good, when I feel that the bike is doing what I like, I can do amazing lap times.
“Today we did it, so it was nice. At the same time, it was pretty curious that it was raining but the track was quite dry and we could push to the limit. I’m really excited. I love Japan so I always want to be on the podium here. I will do my best and we’ll see after the race.”
Enea Bastianini (Ducati), Brad Binder (KTM) and Franco Morbidelli (Pramac) will form the second row of the grid.
Marquez will start from ninth after his cancelled lap.
