2025 Spanish MotoGP: Fabio Quartararo stuns to end Marc Marquez's 2025 pole streak
2021 world champion will start on pole for Spanish GP
Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo will start on pole for the first time since 2022 after stunning Marc Marquez in qualifying for the 2025 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix.
The 2021 world champion put in a strong showing in qualifying in Qatar to get onto the front row, and has been in good form all weekend at a circuit he has won at twice in MotoGP.
Though Marc Marquez set his stall out with his first lap in Q2 to take provisional pole with a new lap record, Fabio Quartararo was able to deny him by 0.033s in a shock result on Saturday morning at Jerez.
It marks his first pole since the 2022 Indonesian GP over 1100 days ago.
Marquez’s 2025 pole streak is now over, with the championship leader starting second on the grid ahead of factory Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia.
Marc Marquez was the favourite to take pole at Jerez coming into the session, having shown strong race pace all weekend and then topping FP2 on Saturday morning.
He did nothing to quell this speculation when he fired in a 1m35.643s on his first flying lap to go almost a second clear of younger brother Alex Marquez.
Quartararo cut Marc Marquez’s advantage down to just over four tenths of a second, with Alex Marquez reducing that further to around two tenths on his second lap.
Marc Marquez was on course to better his provisional pole time in the closing stages of Q2 but just missed out.
But he wouldn’t get another lap in, while at the same time Quartararo began to challenge his time.
The Yamaha rider produced a 1m35.610s to snatch pole for the first time in 2025 and put the M1 at the top of a session for the first time since Qatar 2023.
Bagnaia was a further 0.112s back in third, while Alex Marquez lines up at the head of row two from VR46’s Franco Morbidelli and Q1 pacesetter Maverick Vinales (Tech3 KTM).
Fermin Aldeguer was seventh on the sister Gresini Ducati, with Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46), Joan Mir (Honda) and Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) completing the top 10.
Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi was 11th after coming through Q1, while Pedro Acosta struggled to 12th on the factory team KTM.
Team-mate Brad Binder missed Q2 for the fourth time in 2025 on his factory KTM, as he came up 0.133s shy of cracking the top two in Q1.
He will start both of this weekend’s races from 13th ahead of Pramac’s Jack Miller, while Ai Ogura lines up 15th on the first of the Trackhouse Aprilias.
Honda’s Luca Marini split the satellite Aprilia riders, with Raul Fernandez behind, while Enea Bastianini failed to match Tech3 team-mate Vinales’ Q1 pace down in 18th.
Aleix Espargaro was late out in Q1 due to issues getting his preferred Honda started, forcing him onto his second bike and leaving him time enough for just two short runs.
He will start 19th for his first races with Honda ahead of Pramac stand-in Augusto Fernandez, while Somkiat Chantra (LCR), Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia) and Alex Rins (Yamaha) rounded out the field.
A brace of crashes in FP2 left Rins in the medical centre when Q1 got underway, with the Spaniard having time enough for just one run at the end of the session.
