Motegi MotoGP: Zarco on pole as Marquez gamble backfires

Tech 3 Yamaha's Johann Zarco grabbed a shock MotoGP pole position in a wet qualifying session at Motegi, as slick tyre gambles backfired for both Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi.

After setting the quickest time of the weekend so far in FP4, Marquez seemed to have pole nailed when he immediately bettered his own benchmark with a 1m53.903s, going 1.8s clear of the pack.

But the Repsol Honda rider made a tactical error when he opted for slicks on his second run, with the track not having dried out enough for dry-weather tyres despite the rain having abated.

Valentino Rossi proved slicks were not the tyres to be on when he lapped 19s second off the pace early on, and an earlier crash in FP4 meant the Italian could not quickly switch back to wets.

With Marquez unable to improve on slicks, Zarco stole the top spot away with a minute left to run with a time of 1m53.469s, a full four tenths faster than the Spaniard.

Pramac Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci rubbed salt in Marquez's wounds by going second-fastest shortly afterwards with a time 0.318s adrift of Zarco - who took his second career MotoGP pole.

Marquez held on to third ahead of Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro, lead factory Ducati rider Jorge Lorenzo and the second works Honda of Dani Pedrosa.

KTM impressed in the wet conditions by getting both of its bikes out of Q1, with Bradley Smith taking his best grid slot of the year in seventh ahead of teammate Pol Espargaro.

Andrea Dovizioso could no better than ninth on the second of the factory Ducatis, ahead of Suzuki pair Alex Rins and Andrea Iannone, the former taking a career-best grid slot.

With only a couple of minutes of track time on wets, Rossi was 12th and slowest in Q2, 4.317s off the pace.

Q1: KTMs progress, Vinales out

The first qualifying segment was topped by Pol Espargaro, who made an early move to the top of the times with a 1m55.793s before later improving to a 1m55.258s.

That put him six tenths up on Smith, who made it out of Q1 for only the second time this season, edging out Loris Baz's Avintia Ducati by just 0.016s.

The big story however was title contender Maverick Vinales missing out on a spot in Q2 with a final effort 0.072s slower than that of Smith, which leaves him down in 14th on the grid behind Baz.

Also missing out on a berth in the pole shootout was LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow, who was on course to make it through on his final lap before a big wobble left him fifth-fastest. The Briton starts 15th.

After a major highside crash in FP4, Tech 3 stand-in Kohta Nozane was slowest of all in Q1, and is set to line up 24th and last for his MotoGP debut – one place behind Yamaha testing mentor Katsuyuki Nakasuga.