Qualifying for tomorrow’s MotoGP race at Portimão was held earlier today. Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) took pole position with a new lap record for the circuit. Starting on the front row with Quartararo tomorrow will be Alex Rins (Suzuki) and Johann Zarco (Ducati).
Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) put in a stunning lap to break the circuit record by more than 1/2 a second to take an apparent pole position before stewards disqualified the lap due to a yellow flag ignored by Bagnaia. Marc Marquez (Honda) continued his comeback by qualifying on the outside of the second row for tomorrow’s race. Marquez qualified as the quickest Honda.
Jorge Martin (Ducati), after his stunning pole position and podium at the last round, had a heavy crash earlier today that has put him in the hospital with a broken hand and a broken ankle. We will update with further details when we know them.
Stay tuned to MD for race coverage tomorrow, and take a look here for full qualifying results.
Fabio seems cosmically calm and focused. If I had to bet my own money right now I’d pick him to win the Championship. Zarco looks like maybe if not this year then soon. Obviously MM has several Championships up his sleeve, but maybe not this year as he gets back into full race pace shape. Vinales looked so sharp winning race 1; he just can’t find a consistent groove. It occurred to me that Maverick was slowed in race 2 because he did not recover from the pounding of race 1, but it’s pure speculation.
Even last year I saw extreme promise in Rins, and he looks even sharper this year, so he’s in the running. Bagnaia isn’t going away anytime soon. Both he and Zarco seem to be on the right bikes (Ducati.)
I can hardly believe Zarco was recently going to return to Moto 2. That seems crazy considering he’s the point leader after 2 races.
Fabio is a good pick for the win and the championship, but don’t rule out Marquez the elder. He might just pick up where he left off after the first round of 2020.
What was Bagnai’s action or inaction that comprised his yellow caution flag violation? Damn, I am still surprised again by the excellence of MotoGP video. They replayed the yellow flag IFO Peco, from his on-board camera, which he apparently missed. The flag appeared in Peco’s upper right field of vision, as all his attention was focused through a coming left turn, far from the direction of the flag.
Would it not be simple for a buzzer to alert them in their helmet? Maybe with a yellow light flashing on their control panel?
Felt so bad for Peco; he lost both the pole and new track record by 3-4 tenths.
Very happy for both Fabio and Alex Rins, 1-2 respectively.
What can one say about MM that’s not been said? He is simply a force of nature. I sense that some much needed humility replaced his “Yes I do own the universe” attitude, yet he still fights for the championship with every fiber of his being, maybe as hard as ever.
So excited to see the race I am tempted to wake up early to watch @ 06:00 in my time zone. Formula 1 cages got nothing on MotoGP.
Watched in slo-mo freezing the frames; Maverick positively went over the track limit, just for a ms.
My understanding is that Bagnai’s exceptional lap wouldn’t have counted whether he had seen the yellow caution flag or not. If he HAD seen it, he would have had to back off and he wouldn’t have completed his record lap. He missed seeing it, but the lap doesn’t count anyway. The bad luck wasn’t that he didn’t see the yellow caution flag; it’s that there WAS a yellow caution flag that waved off his record run.
Very good, thank you. Yes, I kind of pieced that together too. Just horrible timing for a yellow. Fate is a fickle mistress!
Will be interesting to see what #20 can do tomorrow. He has certainly been on fire this week.
Poor Rossi. 17th. Guess that’s better than 21st.
Less than 12 hours…. cant wait
Rossi should have retired years ago. He should be running a team instead of riding on one. Still would love to see the “old man” get a podium.
Then tune in next week. Jerez is Rossi’s best chance at a podium, along with Assen. As bad as Rossi’s season went last year, he did still manage a podium at Jerez.
Also, while his qualifying again blew goats this week, his race pace wasn’t too shabby. Had he not crashed (well, yeah), he looked to be on pace for a possible eighth place finish, which wouldn’t have been a bad result from a starting position of seventeenth.
Still, “Valentino Rossi” and “eighth place is not a bad result” should never appear in the same sentence, so there’s that.