Marc Marquez was the class of the field in a wet qualifying session for the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring, storming to pole position aboard his factory Ducati.
While the championship leader had yet another perfect result, his rivals struggled in the conditions. His injured brother Alex was only sixth-quickest, four-time 2025 polesitter Fabio Quartararo seventh and Marc’s team-mate Francesco Bagnaia a disastrous 11th.
Honda LCR rider Zarco dominated Q1, showing the merit of staying out on track for the full duration of a session in which the rain was coming and going. Unlike most of his competition, he chose a medium rear wet tyre instead of a soft one. The Frenchman was able to find pace whenever he needed it, including right at the end of the session, when he had to respond to a lap from Maverick Vinales.
Respond he did, though, going ahead of Tech3 KTM’s Vinales once again – to the tune of 0.222s. Vinales, who was Zarco’s only consistent challenger in the session, held on to second by a whisker. That meant all three of the Austrian bikes made it into Q2, after Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder had qualified via practice on Friday afternoon.
Q2 was essentially wetter throughout, but that didn’t stop Marc Marquez – and only Marc Marquez – edging past Zarco’s Q1 benchmark by the end of it. Typically, he found the limit faster than anybody else did. At one point midway through the session, he was 1.5s quicker than the rest of the field!
Then Zarco, repeating his medium-rear trick from Q1, began to challenge Marquez more closely. But though the Honda was enjoying the cool, wet conditions and kept getting quicker, so did the red factory Ducati. In the end, Zarco had to settle for second, but with a respectable deficit of 0.151s.
After winning the French Grand Prix on a day featuring similarly unpredictable weather, Zarco will be hoping the rain sticks around for the sprint on Saturday afternoon.
Lining up alongside Marquez and Zarco on the front row will be in-form Aprilia man Marco Bezzecchi, whose pace suggested he could be in the running to repeat his Assen podium even in wet conditions. He was, however, almost half a second off the Marc Marquez pace.
Eight tenths back of the leader was Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati), who will lead the second row after walking away from a late low-side crash at Turn 8.
Acosta and Alex Marquez join him on row two, with the latter skipping the first few minutes of the session and appearing to take a cautious approach. The Gresini Ducati rider said on Friday that he would have preferred a dry day, given the risk of falling in the wet and adding to his injury woes.
In keeping with the theme of exaggerated field spread – particularly given how short the circuit is – Alex Marquez was almost half a second slower than Acosta. Quartararo was in a similar range, making this one of the more disappointing seventh places of his career. Similarly miles off the pace was Fabio di Giannantonio, who was next up in eighth, his speed in the dry on Friday clearly not converting to a rainy track.
Jack Miller will round out the third row after a crash early in the session aboard his Pramac Yamaha hindered his progress.
Binder will start 10th, with KTM colleague Vinales 12th. The Spaniard fell heavily early in the session and was unable to register a lap time at all.
Between them will be a grim-faced Bagnaia, who was almost three tenths slower than Binder and a monumental 1.9s shy of his factory Ducati team-mate.
MotoGP German GP - Q2 results
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| Cla | Rider | # | Bike | Laps | Time | Interval | km/h | Speed Trap | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 |  M. Marquez Ducati Team |
93 |  |
Ducati | 10 |
1'27.811 |
149.434 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 |  J. Zarco Team LCR |
5 |  |
Honda | 10 |
+0.151 1'27.962 |
0.151 | 149.178 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3 |  M. Bezzecchi Aprilia Racing Team |
72 |  |
Aprilia | 9 |
+0.421 1'28.232 |
0.270 | 148.721 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4 | F. Morbidelli Team VR46 |
21 |  |
Ducati | 8 |
+0.839 1'28.650 |
0.418 | 148.020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 | P. Acosta Red Bull KTM Factory Racing |
37 |  |
KTM | 9 |
+0.968 1'28.779 |
0.129 | 147.805 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6 | A. Marquez Gresini Racing |
73 |  |
Ducati | 9 |
+1.431 1'29.242 |
0.463 | 147.038 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 | F. Quartararo Yamaha Factory Racing |
20 |  |
Yamaha | 9 |
+1.439 1'29.250 |
0.008 | 147.025 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8 | F. Di Giannantonio Team VR46 |
49 |  |
Ducati | 10 |
+1.516 1'29.327 |
0.077 | 146.898 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9 |  J. Miller Pramac Racing |
43 |  |
Yamaha | 6 |
+1.660 1'29.471 |
0.144 | 146.662 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 |  B. Binder Red Bull KTM Factory Racing |
33 |  |
KTM | 9 |
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| 11 | F. Bagnaia Ducati Team |
63 |  |
Ducati | 9 |
+1.942 1'29.753 |
0.282 | 146.201 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12 | M. Viñales Tech 3 |
12 |  |
KTM | 0 |
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