Four laps, three mistakes
Francesco Bagnaia had fifteen minutes to save his Saturday at Misano and he spent them running wide. The Ducati rider went fastest on his opening lap in Q1 this morning, improved into the 1m30s on his second, and then came apart. He arrived too deep at turn one and had to cut turn two, which killed that lap. He ran on at turn 14. On his final attempt he bailed out at turn six before the lap had taken any shape at all.
Fourth in Q1, and no Q2. Raul Fernandez and Fermin Aldeguer took the two places on offer, Fernandez by nearly four tenths at one stage. Fabio Quartararo slipped past Bagnaia into third. Diogo Moreira, Enea Bastianini and Joan Mir filled the places behind. Bagnaia will line up on the fifth row for the sprint at three o’clock.
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The same complaint, month after month
Friday had already given the warning. Bagnaia spent it describing the problem he has described since the season opened: no grip, no confidence stopping the bike on corner entry, a riding style he himself called defensive. Two world titles sit on his record. He is now fighting for the twelfth-fastest lap time on a Saturday morning.
The setting sharpens it. Ducati build their bikes ninety minutes up the road in Borgo Panigale and treat Misano as a home race, with the grandstands to match. Bagnaia will start it stuck behind eleven riders who beat him to Q2.
Bezzecchi finds something nobody had found
Q2 ran in the opposite direction. Marco Bezzecchi put in the first 1m29s lap in Misano’s history, a 1:29.982 on his third run, and held pole by 0.198s from Marc Marquez, a six-time winner at this circuit who admitted on Friday he was struggling with the layout. Aldeguer completed the front row after coming through Q1.
Behind them the session turned messy. Fabio Di Giannantonio crashed at turn four with a minute left and his yellow flags wiped out laps for others. Alex Marquez went down twice, at turn eight and then turn four, and still held onto ninth. Championship leader Jorge Martin starts fifth. Franco Morbidelli carries a long lap penalty picked up on Friday, though it applies only to Sunday’s grand prix, not this afternoon’s sprint.
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