Quartararo defeats Ducati trio in Dutch TT qualifying

Fabio Quartararo defeated Ducati's three leading riders to score pole position for MotoGP's 2025 edition of the Dutch TT at Assen.

Championship leader Marc Marquez ended up only fourth, the top four covered by a quarter of a second - with Bagnaia closest to rivalling Quartararo, who celebrated his 20th MotoGP pole.

Marquez, despite his dominant qualifying record in MotoGP this year, hasn't had many reservations about following rivals in Q2 - and did so again here, tucking in behind Bagnaia on the first run, resisting the Italian's efforts to 'shake off the tail', and even fighting off an attack from Franco Morbidelli.

So Bagnaia and Marquez ended the first run first and second, but they were both relegated a place when Quartararo sniped provisional pole shortly afterwards.

On the second run - which Marquez did by himself, improving but only managing one clean lap - younger brother Alex became the first all weekend to dip into the 1m30s range, but it wasn't enough.

He was jumped by both Quartararo and Bagnaia, the pair 0.028s apart, Quartararo winning out on the strength of his final sector - which includes the quick run throug Meeuwenmeer, Hoge Heide and Ramshoek and then the lap-ending Geert Timmer chicane.

VR46 proteges Marco Bezzecchi and Morbidelli will join the championship leader on row two, Bezzecchi looking a major threat from fifth on the grid on his Aprilia given how much he's struggled with qualifying in particular this year.

Rookie Fermin Aldeguer and Morbidelli's team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio made it six Ducatis in the top eight.

KTM's weekend had looked promising on Friday, but it couldn't do better here than ninth with Pedro Acosta and 10th with Maverick Vinales.

Completing the Q2 order were Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) - who had missed out on a Q2 spot by 0.001s yesterday but got the job done in Q1 - and Johann Zarco (LCR Honda).

Dutch TT provisional grid

1 Quartararo 2 Bagnaia 3 A Marquez
4 M Marquez 5 Bezzecchi 6 Morbidelli
7 Aldeguer 8 Di Giannantonio 9 Acosta
10 Vinales 11 Fernandez 12 Zarco
13 Mir 14 Miller 15 Savadori
16 Binder 17 Oliveira 18 Rins
19 Ogura 20 Bastianini 21 Espargaro
22 Chantra

Joan Mir was denied a Q2 spot by Aldeguer at the last second in Q1, ending up 0.004s back from the Ducati rookie - and thus heading up the fifth row, where he's joined by Pramac Yamaha's Jack Miller and Aprilia's test rider Lorenzo Savadori.

It was Savadori's joint-best qualifying in MotoGP, his previous 15th place also coming at Assen three years ago.

KTM rider Brad Binder remains on the back foot as his best shot at Q2 was seemingly compromised by getting boxed in behind Tech3 KTM's Enea Bastianini in the final two sectors.

Bastianini was well within his rights to be there as he was on a quick lap himself - but has been penalised three places for impeding Alex Rins earlier, having cut across Rins on corner entry while the Yamaha rider was pushing.

The penalty will relegate Bastianini to 20th on the grid on Sunday, though he will keep his 17th starting place in the sprint.

Ai Ogura was in Q2 contention early on but crashed at Stekkenwal, and couldn't put a lap together after returning to the track later.

Honda tester Aleix Espargaro may join Bastianini in front of the stewards after an irritated Aldeguer had to lunge him in the Geert Timmer chicane during the last-second lap that secured Aldeguer a Q2 spot.