Marc Marquez snatches Hungary MotoGP pole from Pedro Acosta despite crash
Marc Marquez dashed Pedro Acosta’s hopes for Hungary MotoGP pole on Saturday morning
Marc Marquez snatched a second pole of the 2026 MotoGP season after besting Pedro Acosta in a tight battle at the Hungarian Grand Prix despite a crash.
In the second race of his comeback from shoulder surgery, the reigning world champion has looked in stronger form at Balaton Park than he did last weekend at Mugello.
Marc Marquez brushed off an early crash in qualifying on Saturday morning in Hungary and rallied to pressure pole favourite Pedro Acosta on the KTM.
At one stage, Acosta was over four tenths clear of the field, but Marquez snatched top spot from him with a 1m36.791s in the closing stages.
A mistake on his final flying lap ended Acosta’s hopes, while Marquez dug deeper to produce a final effort of 1m36.785s.
Marquez has now moved onto 76 career pole positions in the premier class.
Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer was an impressive third, as he made good use of the updated Ducati chassis he is riding this weekend.
Championship leader Marco Bezzecchi endured a scrappy session on his factory Aprilia and could do no more than sixth, while team-mate Jorge Martin was eighth.
Having topped Practice on Friday, Acosta set the early pace in Q2 on his factory KTM with a 1m37.419s, before improving to a 1m37.228s.
Marquez and VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio suffered low-speed crashes at the start of Q2 at Turn 1.
The former rebounded to go second at the end of his first run.
Acosta tightened his grip on pole position with three minutes to go with a 1m36.888s.
But Marquez put this under threat and edged ahead with a 1m36.781s, before cementing his first pole since Jerez with a 1m36.785s.
Acosta had to settle for second, 0.053s behind Marquez, while Aldeguer climbed onto the first row in third.
Di Giannantonio brushed off his early crash to qualify fourth ahead of Pecco Bagnaia, who came through Q1 on the sister factory team Ducati to salvage his Saturday morning.
Bezzecchi was 0.643s off the pace at the back of row two, with Raul Fernandez seventh on the Trackhouse Aprilia ahead of Martin and Honda’s Luca Marini.
Ai Ogura was 10th on the sister Trackhouse Aprilia, while Diogo Moreira (LCR Honda) and Jack Miller (Pramac Yamaha) rounded out the top 10.
Joan Mir narrowly missed out on a Q2 place and will start 13th on the sister factory Honda, while a crash left Brad Binder in 17th on the second of the factory team KTMs.
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