{"id":2314,"date":"2026-10-31T07:12:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T07:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/?p=2314"},"modified":"2026-10-31T07:12:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T07:12:33","slug":"motogp-alex-marquez-claims-sepang-pole-marc-beaten-by-just-70-thousandths-acosta-third","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/motogp-alex-marquez-claims-sepang-pole-marc-beaten-by-just-70-thousandths-acosta-third\/","title":{"rendered":"MotoGP, Alex Marquez Claims Sepang Pole: Marc Beaten by Just 70 Thousandths, Acosta Third"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Alex Marquez<\/strong> stole the spotlight in qualifying for the Malaysian MotoGP Grand Prix. At the Sepang International Circuit, the Gresini Racing rider secured pole position with a lap time of 1:56.493, edging out his brother Marc Marquez by just 70 thousandths of a second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The decisive lap came in the closing stages of Q2, when Alex managed to improve on the benchmark set by the factory Ducati rider. It marked the Spaniard&#8217;s first pole position of the 2026 season and the third of his premier-class career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Pedro Acosta<\/strong> completed the front row in third place aboard his KTM, finishing just 84 thousandths behind the pole sitter. The top three riders were separated by less than a tenth of a second, highlighting how closely contested the battle for pole position had been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Aprilia on the Second Row, Bagnaia Only Tenth<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aprilia enjoyed a strong qualifying session, with Ai Ogura taking fourth place ahead of Marco Bezzecchi, who finished fifth, 0.175 seconds behind Alex Marquez. Fabio Di Giannantonio completed the second row in sixth aboard his VR46 Ducati.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Enea Bastianini qualified seventh, followed by Johann Zarco and Franco Morbidelli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was a difficult qualifying session for <strong>Francesco Bagnaia<\/strong>. The factory Ducati rider, who had been forced to progress through Q1, struggled to produce a competitive lap in the final qualifying session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A mistake at Turn 1 compromised one of his attempts, prompting a visible display of frustration when he returned to the garage. The Italian will start from tenth on the grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jorge Martin Withdraws: Major Opportunity for Marc Marquez<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the biggest developments of the weekend concerns <strong>Jorge Martin<\/strong>. The Aprilia rider, still recovering from the wrist fracture sustained during the Sprint race at Phillip Island, decided to withdraw from the Malaysian Grand Prix after attempting to return to action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His withdrawal could have significant consequences for the championship battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marc Marquez arrived in Sepang holding a ten-point advantage over Martin and now has an opportunity to extend his lead in the standings. Meanwhile, Bezzecchi will be looking to make the most of his second-row starting position to close the gap in the championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Sepang Sprint is scheduled to begin at <strong>3:00 PM local time (8:00 AM CET)<\/strong>, with Alex Marquez aiming to defend his pole position against challenges from his brother Marc and Pedro Acosta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Marquez stole the spotlight in qualifying for the Malaysian MotoGP Grand Prix. At the Sepang International Circuit, the Gresini Racing rider secured pole position with a lap time of 1:56.493, edging out his brother Marc Marquez by just 70 thousandths of a second. The decisive lap came in the closing stages of Q2, when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motogp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2316,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions\/2316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}