Di Giannantonio on MotoGP pole again, Marquez only sixth
A resurgent Fabio Di Giannantonio claimed his second consecutive MotoGP pole in the Grand Prix of the Americas qualifying on Saturday, as Marc Marquez placed only sixth.
Usual COTA dominator Marquez wound up half a second off pole, and is one of three riders under investigation for potentially impeding rivals during Q2.
Honda rider Joan Mir had taken a shock two-tenths lead aftwer the initial run, but was shuffled down the order in the late flurry of improvements as he himself could not find more laptime.
Mir was, in fact, overtaken by Di Giannantonio en route to the latter's 2m00.136s, a massive improvement on the previous MotoGP pole record at the venue.
Aprilia rider Marco Bezzecchi kept up his strong start to 2026 by qualifying second. But Bezzecchi is in the stewards' sights for drawing the ire of Marquez on the run to the Turn 12 braking zone during Marquez's messy first run in Q2.
Pedro Acosta was the only KTM rider in the top 10 again, hauling himself up to third by running behind Di Giannantonio - while Pecco Bagnaia and Mir completed the top five.
Bagnaia had the first lap of his second run in Q2 written off by traffic, with Ai Ogura being looked at as a potential culprit. Marquez, who qualified sixth, is being investigated for potentially getting in the way of Enea Bastianini - the same rider he'd tried to overtake on a flying lap earlier, missing the braking into Turn 12.
Jorge Martin, Alex Marquez and Luca Marini are due to make up row three, with Fermin Aldeguer sneaking into the top 10 behind them - having battled his way through Q1 and limited to just one run in Q2.
Ogura and Bastianini completed the Q2 order, the former seemingly ill at ease after crashing twice in pre-qualifying practice and the former compromised by a Q2 crash.
GP of the Americas provisional grid
1 Di Giannantonio 2 Bezzecchi 3 Acosta
4 Bagnaia 5 Mir 6 M Marquez
7 Martin 8 A Marquez 9 Marini
10 Aldeguer 11 Ogura 12 Bastianini
13 Fernandez 14 Moreira 15 Zarco
16 Quartararo 17 Razgatlioglu 18 Binder
19 Miller 20 Morbidelli 21 Rins
Raul Fernandez was left on the outside of Q2 looking in by 0.018s, as the sole Aprilia rider absent from the first four rows.
He will be joined on the fifth row by the LCR Honda duo of Diogo Moreira and Johann Zarco, Moreira towing Mir to a strong laptime and becoming the first LCR team-mate to outqualify Zarco since Sachsenring 2024.
Fabio Quartararo had a slow tip-off on his first Q1 run, but picked up his M1 and brought it back in - before then placing as the top Yamaha anyway, by a couple of tenths over nearest rival and stablemate Toprak Razgatlioglu.
