Quartararo beats Marquez to Valencia MotoGP pole position

Full Valencia MotoGP qualifying results

Fabio Quartararo has claimed his sixth and the last pole position of the 2019 MotoGP season edging Marc Marquez and Jack Miller.

In a tightly-contested Q2, the Petronas Yamaha rider set the standard to beat with provisional pole position at the end of the first runs thanks to his 1m 30.235s.

But Pramac Ducati’s Miller beat that at the start of the final runs in qualifying with a 1m 30.086s meaning Quartararo would need a 1m 29s lap to ensure he could secure pole position.

The MotoGP rookie of the year duly delivered with a 1m 29.978s to take pole position in Valencia having topped three out of the four practice sessions this weekend at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.

MotoGP world champion Marquez slotted his Repsol Honda between Quartararo and Miller on the front row which meant Malaysian Grand Prix winner Maverick Vinales was shuffled back to fourth place with just two-tenths of a second splitting the top four.

Franco Morbidelli continued his top five showing for Petronas Yamaha ahead of Andrea Dovizioso who completed the second row for Ducati.

Joan Mir also impressed in seventh place for Suzuki directly ahead of team-mate Alex Rins who progressed through Q1, with Cal Crutchlow rounding out row three for LCR Honda.

With Danilo Petrucci in 10^th place for Ducati, Pol Espargaro had to use a hard rear tyre on his Red bull KTM having used up his allocation of soft tyres in Q1 but did enough for 11^th place in front of a disaster qualifying for Valentino Rossi with the Monster Energy Yamaha rider down in 12^th place.

Johann Zarco became the unlucky 13^th-placed rider to miss out on progressing from Q1 on the LCR Honda ahead of his final stand-in appearance for Takaaki Nakagami, as rumours swirled linking the French rider to a shock Avintia Ducati move for 2020.

Ducati wildcard Michele Pirro claims 14^th on the grid ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro who is suffering a battering so far in Valencia due to three crashes in practice.

Repsol Honda’s Jorge Lorenzo will line up from 16^th place for his final MotoGP race before retiring from racing at the end of this season.

With Red Bull KTM’s Mika Kallio in 17^th place and Tito Rabat in 18^th place for Avintia Ducati, Iker Lecuona caught the eye ahead of his MotoGP debut by qualifying in 19^th place for Red Bull Tech3 KTM standing in for the injured Miguel Oliveira.

Andrea Iannone (Aprilia), Karel Abraham (Avintia Ducati) and Hafizh Syahrin (Tech3 KTM) complete the grid for the Valencia Grand Prix.