Dovizioso bolts to Brno pole ahead of Rossi

Full MotoGP qualifying results from Brno

Andrea Dovizioso has clinched pole position in Brno with a stunning final lap in an intense qualifying to see off Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez in a hotly-fought front row.

The Ducati rider left it until his final flying lap to produce a lap record 1m 54.689s to beat Rossi’s short-lived provisional pole time by a quarter of a second with the Movistar Yamaha rider displacing Marquez from top spot with his own final lap.

It marks Dovizioso’s first MotoGP pole since the 2016 Malaysia race in Sepang as he looks to kick-start a title charge having slipped to 77 points behind leader Marquez in the riders’ standings.

With Rossi and Marquez completing a competitive front row, Jorge Lorenzo narrowly missed out for Ducati in fourth place but just 0.017s ahead of LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow in fifth place at the track he claimed his maiden MotoGP race win at in 2016.

Danilo Petrucci completes the second row for Pramac Ducati in sixth place to see Johann Zarco in seventh on the Monster Yamaha Tech 3.

Suzuki duo Andrea Iannone and Alex Rins round out row three ahead of Friday’s fastest rider Dani Pedrosa, who was unable to find significant lap time gains in qualifying, as Q1 qualifiers Tito Rabat (Avintia Ducati) and Maverick Vinales (Movistar Yamaha) completed the fourth row.

Alvaro Bautista narrowly missed out on stealing a Q2 spot in the first qualifying session having been on a lap provisional quick enough to take a top two spot but crashed out at Turn 12.

Bautista’s crash saw rookie Franco Morbidelli (Marc VDS Honda) grab 13^th place ahead of the Angel Nieto Ducati rider with Bradley Smith leading the Red Bull KTM charge in 15^th place.

Hafizh Syahrin (Tech 3) and Jack Miller (Pramac Ducati) suffered frustrating qualifying sessions after struggling during Q1 and will line up 16^th and 17^th respectively.