Quartararo beats Bezzecchi for surprise Australia MotoGP pole
MotoGP

Quartararo beats Bezzecchi for surprise Australia MotoGP pole

by Valentin Khorounzhiy
3 min read

Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo snatched an unlikely pole position from Aprilia's Marco Bezzecchi in a thrilling qualifying for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island.

Bezzecchi had been a heavy favourite going into qualifying after a dominant single-lap performance on Friday, but his Q2 got off to a difficult start - with one lap lost to yellow flags and another lost on approach to Turn 4.

Bezzecchi came up on his good friend Pecco Bagnaia there, so had to overtake him on corner entry - but didn't make the apex, with another good friend Luca Marini also ending up in the way.

The incident was immediately placed under investigation, with Bagnaia assessed a three-place grid penalty in the aftermath.

In any case, on his second run Bezzecchi was immediately into provisional pole, and then lowered the benchmark again with his second attempt - though that was still 0.004s off his own Friday effort.

It looked like it would be good enough for pole - a must-have for Bezzecchi given he faces a double long-lap penalty for the Mandalika crash that caused Marc Marquez's injury absence here - only for Quartararo to snipe it away at the last second.

It is Quartararo's fifth pole of the season and 21st in MotoGP.

Australian GP qualifying results

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

Home hero Jack Miller had provisional pole after the initial runs and, with Quartararo a distant reference up ahead, ended up finding some more laptime at the last second to place on the front row.

Raul Fernandez took fourth for Trackhouse Aprilia, ahead of lead KTM rider Pedro Acosta and Alex Marquez, despite the latter's calamitous session.

Gresini rider Marquez first fell at Turn 4, then came off at Turn 1 at speed on his second run.

But he still ended up just ahead of rookie team-mate Fermin Aldeguer, who was limited to a single run in Q2, having presumably run out of useable rear tyres.

KTM tester Pol Espargaro was impressive again in eighth, ahead of Honda's sole Q2 rider Marini - who lost an engine during pre-qualifying practice with a major blow-up on the straight.

VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio has looked a potential win contender based on race pace, but will start only 10th - with the penalised Bagnaia, who made a mistake on his final lap, and Alex Rins behind him in the Q2 order.

Brad Binder was eliminated in Q1 despite lapping just 0.038s slower than session-topper Aldeguer (and 0.029s behind second-placed Miller).

But he also found himself part of two separate investigations - one involving a bad crash for Lorenzo Savadori, the other involving Johann Zarco's late push for Q2.

Savadori crashed hard at Siberia on an outlap, the cameras showing that he slammed on the brakes to avoid clattering into Binder's KTM - with the investigation presumably related to whether Binder was riding unnecessarily slowly.

As for Zarco, he was livid at the South African after rolling out of a potentially Q2-worthy lap and feeling that Binder had impeded him unnecessarily, with the stewards agreeing and assessing Binder a three-place penalty.

Zarco - who had gone down in pre-qualifying practice and tried desperately to restart his primary bike and get it to the pits before giving up - therefore ended up 15th on the grid, right behind Honda stablemate Joan Mir, with the gap from fifth to first in Q1 smaller than the gap from Zarco to sixth-placed Miguel Oliveira.

Franco Morbidelli qualified only 17th for VR46 Ducati, in his worst qualifying of the season, while Tech3's Enea Bastianini was a miserable 20th on the last of the KTMs.

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