MotoGP starting grid after Francesco Bagnaia’s Malaysian Grand Prix pole and Marco Bezzecchi Q1 exit

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Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia secured pole position for the 2025 MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix this Saturday, for his third pole around Sepang across the past three years.

Bagnaia has endured a miserable run of form since he took pole for the Japanese Grand Prix in September. The two-time champion only qualified P16 for the Indonesian Grand Prix and P11 for the Australian GP, but will start the Malaysian GP on pole for the third year in a row.

The 2025 MotoGP season has rolled into Sepang this week in round 20 of 22, off the back of Raul Fernandez of Trackhouse taking his first MotoGP race win at the Australian Grand Prix. But Ducati have also confirmed that Marc Marquez will miss the rest of 2025 through injury.

Qualifying for the 2025 Malaysian GP was not a positive affair for all four of the Aprilia riders. Factory pair Marco Bezzecchi and Lorenzo Savadori plus Trackhouse’s Fernandez and Ai Ogura all failed to move into Q2 at Sepang. Bezzecchi was the top Aprilia rider but in P14.

Francesco Bagnaia scores pole position for the 2025 MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang

Yamaha, KTM and Honda riders all showed potential during the opening exchanges in Q2 at Sepang on Saturday, as Fabio Quartararo took provisional pole for the Malaysian Grand Prix with a 1:57.195. The Frenchman’s time demoted Pedro Acosta from the top spot by 0.168s.

READ MORE: Everything to know about the Malaysian Grand Prix, including past winners

Acosta had set the pace from the off before Quartararo rose to the top of the Q2 timesheet. LCR Honda rider Johann Zarco also showed some early potential, before the Frenchman was pipped by factory Honda racer Joan Mir for P3 despite the Spaniard riding on the very edge.

Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia had to advance from Q1 to feature in Q2 and initially elected to wait until the mid-session lull to venture back out onto the circuit. The straight-line speed advantage of his GP25 also let Bagnaia eclipse Quartararo atop the Q2 timesheet by 0.194s.

Acosta would not respond to the pace that Bagnaia and Quartararo produced, though, as he crashed at Turn 1 inside the final three minutes. So, the KTM rider was not allowed to re-join the action due to a new qualifying rule that MotoGP has introduced from the Malaysian GP.

Gresini ace Alex Marquez and VR46 star Franco Morbidelli would improve their times in the late stages of Q2 to get onto the provisional front row behind Bagnaia. Quartararo appeared to have a response to threaten Bagnaia for pole, but his last lap fell away in the final corners.

Morbidelli’s P3 marks the 30-year-old’s first front row start since the VR46 rider qualified P3 for the Aragon Grand Prix this June. Bagnaia was 0.603s slower than his Ducati teammate as Marc Marquez took pole for the Aragon GP, but the Italian topped the timesheets at Sepang.

Fermin Aldeguer and Francesco Bagnaia advance from Q1 as Marco Bezzecchi bows out at Sepang

Honda rider Luca Marini carried his promising pace from the final practice session into Q1 at Sepang, having set the pace in FP2 with a personal-best 1:58.415. The Italian found a groove and stayed in it come qualifying, as he topped the provisional Q1 timesheet with a 1:57.536.

READ MORE: The most successful MotoGP riders at the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang

Gresini rookie Fermin Aldeguer also found his groove early on in Q1 to sit second before the final runs, which left Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia and Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi both sitting in the drop zone. But both Italian riders improved their times from the start of their final runs.

Bagnaia shot to the top of the Q1 timesheet with three minutes to go with a 1:57.190. But a 1:57.549 was all that Bezzecchi would manage to move to third place at Aldeguer’s expense. And running deep at Turn 1 even left Bezzecchi with only one final chance to advance to Q2.

But Aldeguer improved on his penultimate lap to shuffle Marini out of the top two, with just a 0.042s lead over Bagnaia. A mistake at Turn 4 by the 20-year-old, as he dropped his Ducati GP24, would even deny Marini a chance to improve his pace after catching the yellow flags.

Marini was mere inches from arriving at Turn 4 as the yellow flags for Aldeguer’s crash went back in, but it was too late for the Honda rider to try to improve his time and advance to Q2. Aldeguer even had another fall upon returning to the Gresini garage, as he dropped his bike.

Full 2025 MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying results and grid at Sepang