Can Bagnaia emulate Casey Stoner's 2007 feat?

The Italian sits on pole, but only one Ducati has ever taken victory in Misano from P1! Get your fill of stats ahead of the San Marino GP

The grid is now set ahead of the Octo Grand Prix of San Marino, and after an exhilarating MotoGP™ qualifying, Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) sits on pole and while that is something you would usually celebrate, it comes with a caveat when riding at Misano. Read more about that below as we give you some juicy stats to delve into ahead of lights out on Sunday. 

1.   Francesco Bagnaia has qualified on pole position (setting a new all-time lap record at Misano) for the third time in MotoGP™ this season, adding to qualifying successes in Qatar and MotorLand Aragon.

2.   This is Ducati’s fourth Misano pole in MotoGP™, with Casey Stoner in 2007 and 2008 and Jorge Lorenzo in 2018 the others. Only Stoner in 2007 went on to win the race (as well as to finish on the podium).

3.   Since 2007, only four riders have won the MotoGP™ race after qualifying on pole position at Misano: Casey Stoner (2007), Valentino Rossi (2009), Dani Pedrosa (2010) and Maverick Viñales (2020).

4.   This is the first Ducati 1-2 in back-to-back MotoGP™ qualifying sessions since 2018, when it was three in a row from Silverstone to Aragon.

5.   Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) has qualified third and starts from the front row for the 35th time (on what is his 47th race in MotoGP™, nearly 74.4%). Over his 34 previous front-row starts, he went on to finish on the podium 17 times (including seven of his eight premier class wins so far).

6.   Jorge Martin (Pramac Racing) has qualified fourth as the top Independent Team rider and third Ducati rider (as well as the top rookie), which is the sixth time on what is his 10th MotoGP™ race that he starts from the front two rows of the grid.

7.   Pol Espargaro (Repsol Honda Team) has qualified sixth as the highest-placed Honda. This is the fifth successive time there is no Honda rider on the front row in MotoGP™ at Misano.

8.   In Q1 for the sixth time since he came back from injury in Portugal (two more than between 2013 and 2020 prior to his injury), Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) joined Q2 and qualified in seventh place (after crashing) for his worst qualifying result in MotoGP™ at Misano.

9.   Maverick Viñales has qualified 10th, which is his best qualifying result since he joined Aprilia. He will be aiming to become only the second rider to take two wins on bikes from two different manufacturers in a single premier class season along with Mike Hailwood in 1961 (TT/Norton, Nations/MV Agusta).

10. Joan Mir (Team Suzuki Ecstar) has qualified 11th which is the eighth time so far this year he has failed to start from the front three rows of the grid. Of his 12 MotoGP™ podiums so far, eight of them came after he failed to start from the front two rows of the grid...

Every practice session, qualifying battle and race, exclusive interviews, historic races and so much more fantastic content: this is VideoPass!