2025 Americas MotoGP: Marc Marquez survives late yellow flag drama for pole
Marc Marquez maintains 100% pole record in MotoGP 2025 at COTA
Marc Marquez survived late yellow flag drama in qualifying for the MotoGP Americas Grand Prix to maintain his 100% pole record in 2025.
Having topped Friday practice and set the best pace in FP2 on Saturday morning at the Circuit of the Americas, Marc Marquez came into qualifying as favourite to take pole.
And he delivered, setting a 2m01.088s late on in the session to take his third-successive MotoGP pole of the season ahead of VR46 Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio and Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez.
A late crash for Joan Mir brought yellow flags out around Marquez while he was on his best lap, but he kept the time having been just ahead of the Honda rider when he fell.
Di Giannantonio was initially demoted to sixth having set a lap just 0.101s slower than pole because of the yellow flags, only to have it reinstated after the chequered flag.
The VR46 rider was behind Mir when he crashed, but because there was no time for him to react to the yellow flags the lap was counted as legal.
Pecco Bagnaia could only manage sixth having felt like he made a step forward with his GP25’s braking performance on Friday.
Marc Marquez set the fastest lap of the weekend at that point in his first Q2 lap, as he set the benchmark at 2m01.522s to go 0.168s clear of Di Giannantonio.
Set to better this after a fast first sector on his second lap, Marquez ran wide at Turn 12 and had to abort the effort.
The factory Ducati rider’s first lap of his second run didn’t trouble his provisional pole time, while Gresini’s Alex Marquez edged ahead with 90 seconds remaining after firing in a 2m01.448s.
As he started his final lap, Marc Marquez lit up the timing screens and snatched top spot back with a 2m01.088s to register his eighth pole at COTA.
Behind the front row was KTM’s Pedro Acosta, who briefly held third before Di Giannantonio’s lap was reinstated.
He heads the sister VR46 Ducati of Franco Morbidelli, while Bagnaia on the second factory team Ducati was 0.523s off pole.
Luca Marini came through Q1 and put his factory Honda seventh ahead of Mir, who had been chasing Marc Marquez when he crashed at the end of the Q2 session.
Jack Miller was the top Yamaha rider in ninth for Pramac, with Tech3 KTM’s Maverick Vinales, Fabio Quartararo - who came through Q1 on his factory Yamaha - and Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer rounding out the top 12.
Aldeguer suffered a small tip-off at Turn 1 in the closing stages of Q2.
No Aprilia made it out of Q1 at COTA a year on from the brand’s victory at the circuit, with Marco Bezzecchi its leading light in 13th - the Italian just 0.082s outside of Q2.
Johann Zarco was only able to qualify 15th on his LCR Honda behind Yamaha’s Alex Rins, while KTM duo Brad Binder and Enea Bastianini were 16th and 17th respectively.
Q1 was briefly red-flagged after Raul Fernandez crashed his Trackhouse Aprilia on the exit of Turn 9 and damaged the safety barrier.
He was unharmed and qualified 19th behind team-mate Ai Ogura. Pramac stand-in Augusto Fernandez was 20th from LCR Honda’s Somkiat Chantra and Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori.
