First GP of the year and an image similar to the one seen so many times in 2023, with Jorge Martín taking pole position for the Qatar GP.
Here’s the first Q2 of MotoGP in 2024 and the question: who will take the first pole position of the season?
After the first few laps, Martín was fastest with a 1:50.789, 0.230s ahead of Fabio Di Gianntonio, and Francesco Bagnaia 0.324s. Marc Márquez was fourth, Enea Bastianini fifth and Jack Miller rounded off the first two rows of the grid.
There were seven minutes left in the session and in the garage most of the riders were making their final preparations for the all-or-nothing attack on pole position at Losail.
With five minutes left in the session, Ducati had five of the five fastest riders, but… would it stay that way?
On his return, with just under four minutes to go until the end of Q2, Di Gia was already in red sectors, as was Bagnaia, but if Di Gia had lost “gas” the same could not be said for Bagnaia, who had improved to second, still trailing Martín by 0.139s, after a mistake when he went too wide at the last corner.
Aleix Espargaró challenged the Ducati for second place and was 0.083s behind Martín, and soon after Binder was 0.124s behind and took third place.
Raúl Fernández crashed and was out of the fight for pole position, while in the final seconds the suspense grew with… more Martín! The Pramac Racing rider was having red-flagged sectores and had hoped to improve his time. Just before that, Binder also crashed.
Martín ended up failing to improve his time, but the session ended with the #89 once again securing the start from the first position on the grid. A. Espargaró was second and Enea Bastianini third.