Marquez denies Bagnaia in close Mugello MotoGP pole battle

Marc Marquez fought off his Ducati MotoGP team-mate Pecco Bagnaia and his brother Alex Marquez in a thrilling Italian Grand Prix pole battle.

The elder Marquez had led Bagnaia by 0.048s at the halfway point of Q2, aided by a first-run tow from his brother Alex, but then ran by himself in the closing minutes.

He was then around a hundredth down on Bagnaia's provisional pole through three sectors of his best lap, but found more time through Bucine and on the back straight to post a session-topping 1m44.169s - which stands as the new best-ever lap of Mugello in MotoGP.

With the two factory Ducati team-mates split by 0.059s, Alex Marquez was another quarter of a tenth back in third - with nobody else having the pace to trouble the three championship protagonists.

Italian GP provisional starting grid

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

Fabio Quartararo, who had a shoulder injury scare after a Friday crash but was cleared to continue after an MRI, was flirting with a pole challenge on the Yamaha but was powerless to take on the Ducatis in that final sector - so settled for fourth.

Maverick Vinales, quickest on Friday and in the pre-qualifying Saturday morning practice, kept himself in contention by moving up to fifth late on in the session, his KTM slotting in ahead of the VR46 Ducati duo of Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Di Giannantonio.

Pedro Acosta (KTM), Alex Rins (Yamaha) and Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) completed the top 10, while the last spots in Q2 were occupied by those who had advanced from Q1 - Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) and Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati).

Aldeguer would've been 10th on the grid had he matched his Q1 time in Q2, but struggled to put the lap together again.

He could yet move up a spot, though, with Rins being looked at for impeding Marc Marquez in the final minutes of Q2.

Pramac Yamaha rider Jack Miller had a Q2 spot snatched away from him by Fernandez at the last second, by a margin of 0.014s, so will start 13th ahead of the lead Honda - that of LCR rider Johann Zarco.

The RC213Vs continued to look thoroughly uncompetitive at Mugello, but Zarco at least moved himself up the grid by catching a well-timed tow from Aldeguer during the latter's Q1-topping time.

Brad Binder will complete the fifth row for KTM. He'd looked fast on Friday but cost himself a shot at the top 10 with a crash, then didn't really look in the mix for Q2 spots on Saturday.

Trackhouse Aprilia's rookie Ai Ogura had his worst MotoGP qualifying yet in 21st. Clearly hamstrung still by his tibia fracture, he was beaten by Aprilia tester Lorenzo Savadori (who, like Zarco, followed Aldeguer at the right time).

But he was nearly a second up on his former Moto2 team-mate Somkiat Chantra in last place as Chantra's brutal weekend - following his Friday crash into the barriers that left him dizzy - continued.