MotoGP Japan Grand Prix has ended. Alex Marquez broke Motegi's MotoGP lap record with a time of 1:42.811 on the last lap and became the fastest rider of the practice session. Pedro Acosta finished second, just 0.076 seconds behind; Marc Marquez took third place with a margin of exactly 0.100 seconds. Among the biggest surprises of the day, Francesco Bagnaia and host Ai Ogura failing to qualify for Q2 directly occurred in a race where the top 18 riders were clustered within one second.
The Battle of the Top Three Riders
The lead changed constantly throughout the qualifying session. Marco Bezzecchi, Marc Marquez, Pedro Acosta, and Fermin Aldeguer each took the lead in different sessions; Alex Marquez delivered the final verdict.
Alex Marquez set a time of 1:42.811 in the MotoGP qualifying, securing first place for Friday and becoming the record holder for the fastest lap in MotoGP. Coming in well below the previous record, Marquez raced with an average speed of 168.1 km/h in official results.
Pedro Acosta finished first with 1:42.887 in the Austrian GP race. Marc Marquez finished in third with 1:42.911. The difference between these three riders was only 0.100 seconds.
KTM and Honda Confrontations
Marco Bezzecchi made a strong start for KTM. He secured third place with a 0.218 second gap behind the leader on the Aprilia; Enea Bastianini took fifth place. Bastianini joining Acosta in the top five provided a solid start for KTM for the weekend.
Diogo Moreira moved from ninth in the Honda category to second place by overtaking Johann Zarco, who moved to tenth place. Although the two riders crashed in the latter part of the session, they managed to stay within the top ten with their previous lap times. Zarco's crash on the final corner caused a yellow flag, while Moreira also fell on the fifth lap. Both riders managed to avoid serious injury from their crashes.
Surprises and Critical Rankings
Francesco Bagnaia delivered one of the biggest surprises of the day as the rider for the Ducati manufacturer. Despite being 0.775 seconds behind the leader with a time of 1:43.586, he managed to secure only sixteenth place due to the tight competition. Ai Ogura missed out on Q2 while racing at home. The Japanese rider, who was sidelined due to a technical issue resulting in a red flag, finished fifteenth. Fermin Aldeguer finished eleventh, Brad Binder twelfth, Raul Fernandez thirteenth, Franco Morbidelli fourteenth, and Luca Marini seventeenth.
Rider Toprak Razgatlıoğlu finished twenty-first. The gap between Toprak and Alex Marquez was set at 1,600 seconds. Maverick Vinales, who returned from injury to the races, finished twenty-second and raced with 1:44.836. The determination of Friday's qualifying in MotoGP shows how intense the competition is before Saturday. With only a tenth of a second difference between Alex Marquez, Acosta, and Marc Marquez, riders like Bagnaia, Ogura, and Aldeguer will place greater importance on the qualifying laps.
Statements
Alex Marquez: "Everything Came Naturally, No Need to Force It"
Figures
- Alex Marquez is competing in 8th place with 158 points in the 2026 MotoGP season (Gresini Racing).
- Archive: Marc Marquez wins in Sprint (October 3, 2026)
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Go to sourceCompiled by Şükrü Utku Poyraz
