{"id":239165,"date":"2025-10-25T04:52:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T04:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/239165\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T04:52:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T04:52:00","slug":"francesco-bagnaia-strikes-back-to-claim-pole-disaster-for-aprilia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/239165\/","title":{"rendered":"Francesco Bagnaia strikes back to claim pole, disaster for Aprilia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Francesco Bagnaia<\/a> came through Q1 to score a surprise pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday, as Aprilia endured a difficult day at Sepang.<\/p>\n

Opting for a single run midway through the session to preserve a set of soft tyres, the factory Ducati rider made the most of a clear track to post a 1m57.001s lap.<\/p>\n

Although several riders posted fastest individual sectors, including Yamaha\u2019s Fabio Quartararo<\/a>, Bagnaia held on to clinch his third pole of the season by 0.016s.<\/p>\n

The Italian\u2019s closest challenger was Gresini\u2019s Alex Marquez<\/a> in second, while Franco Morbidelli<\/a> completed an all-Ducati front -row in third for VR46.<\/p>\n

Pedro Acosta<\/a> initially led the way in the 15-minute shootout, climbing to the top spot on the timesheets with a 1m57.363s.<\/p>\n

Quartararo snatched the top spot soon after with a 1m57.195s, before Bagnaia moved the goalposts in his single run in the middle of the session.<\/p>\n

The Frenchman appeared set to secure a last-gap pole in qualifying, having been significantly quicker than Bagnaia through the opening three sectors. But a poor final sector left him fourth on the grid, 0.194s off pole position.<\/p>\n

Acosta couldn\u2019t improve his early benchmark after crashing at Turn 1 and remounting on his bike, but he was still the top KTM in fifth place.<\/p>\n

Gresini\u2019s Fermin Aldeguer<\/a> had an eventual qualifying as he set the fastest time in Q1, only to crash twice later on – first at Turn 4 and then in the paddock as he tried to bring the bike back into the garage.<\/p>\n

Switching to his secondary machine, he ended up sixth with a time that was slower than his Q1 flyer.<\/p>\n

Honda\u2019s charge was led by Joan Mir<\/a> in seventh position, with LCR\u2019s Johann Zarco<\/a> finishing just two spots behind in ninth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fabio di Giannantonio separated the two Hondas in eighth on the VR46 Ducati, while Alex Rins<\/a> rounded out the top 10 for Yamaha.<\/p>\n

Jack Miller<\/a> was classified 11th on the Pramac Yamaha, while KTM test rider Pol Espargaro<\/a> was slowest of the Q2 runners in 12th.<\/p>\n

FP2 pacesetter Luca Marini<\/a> (Honda) narrowly missed out on advancing to Q2 after encountering yellow flags in Sector 1 when Aldeguer crashed at Turn 4.<\/p>\n

Aprilia failed to get a single bike into the second part of qualifying, just a week after it dominated the Indonesian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

The best rider from the Noale marque was Marco Bezzecchi<\/a> in 14th place, with Trackhouse duo Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura<\/a> finishing 15th and 17th respectively. They were separated by the Pramac Yamaha of Miguel Oliveira<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Augusto Fernandez<\/a> propped up the timesheets in 23rd on Yamaha\u2019s V4 prototype, ending qualifying 2.3 seconds off the pace.<\/p>\n

Q2 results:<\/p>\n

Q1 results:<\/p>\n

Photos from Malaysian GP – Practice and Qualifying<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Marco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Somkiat<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Fabio<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Johann<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Joan<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Pol<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Fabio<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Marco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Enea<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Raul<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Fabio<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Franco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Augusto<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Medical<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Pedro<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Fermin<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Pedro<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Fermin<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Brad<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Francesco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Franco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Franco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Franco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Francesco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Fermin<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Franco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Franco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Franco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

\"Franco<\/p>\n


\n
\n Malaysian GP – Saturday, in photos
\n
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

We want your opinion!<\/p>\n

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n

Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francesco Bagnaia came through Q1 to score a surprise pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,143018,817,813,816,141089,5745,143017,141090,85],"class_list":["post-239165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-disaster-for-aprilia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-malaysian-gp","tag-motogp","tag-motogp-malaysian-gp-francesco-bagnaia-strikes-back-to-claim-pole","tag-sepang-international-circuit","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}