Miguel Oliveira continued his sensational home weekend by securing the debut premier class pole position of his MotoGP career after an intense and frenetic late-session battle with Franco Morbidelli. Jack Miller completed the front row line-up ahead of Sunday’s Portuguese GP after demoting Britain’s Cal Crutchlow in the dying minutes.
MotoGP qualifying suffered a delayed start due to track conditions after Johann Zarco’s Ducati went pop at the end of FP4, the Frenchman controversially crossing the track at the last corner in his bid to bring the bike back to the pits as quickly as possible.
Q1 action finally underway, Crutchlow headed out for the final qualifying session of his full-time MotoGP career. Joan Mir set the early benchmark with a 1’40.290, Morbidelli behind in the final promotion spot as Lorenzo Savadori sat best of the rest before teammate Aleix Espargaro advanced to P2, Morbidelli now leading as the pair broke into the 1’39s. With Morbidelli’s time deleted due to track limits, Brad Binder was promoted into second behind the Aprilia rider and Crutchlow sat on the cusp in third, Alex Marquez and Valentino Rossi holding fourth and fifth as the second runs began.
Four riders flashed red as the closing action fired up. Crutchlow the initial winner as he claimed P1 with a 1’39.250 from Morbidelli, two-hundredths behind, with Binder losing out in the second-half of his opening hot-lap before advancing back to third on his next attempt. As the flag dropped there was little seeming to threaten the Brit, the South African winding up his KTM as he pushed to the line but he failed to demote either of the leading pair, falling short by just 0.114. Further shocks saw Rossi settle for seventh - behind Marquez and ahead of Danilo Petrucci - with Mir down in 10th at the end of the first session, the World Champion starting Sunday’s finale from 20th on the grid.
Takaaki Nakagami started Q2 in considerable pain after a nasty FP4 crash dented his, so far, stellar weekend, the Japanese rider visibly suffering as he failed to set a time after four laps on track. Fabio Quartararo set the benchmark-time from Zarco and current teammate Morbidelli before next-year’s partner Maverick Viñales hit the top with a 1’39.689. Zarco and Morbidelli both countered immediately with the Italian setting a dominant effort, four-tenths clear, as Jack Miller demoted the Frenchman for second shortly after.
Morbidelli advanced again as the final shootout began, Crutchlow and Stefan Bradl charging their Honda’s through to double front row contention with two minutes to go as Quartararo spoiled the party to take third. Morbidelli looked to seal the deal with a spectacular 1’38.936 before Miguel Oliveira delighted the local fans (albeit from their actual homes) with a dominant last-lap, taking his debut MotoGP pole position on home soil by four-hundredths of a second.
Miller joined the front row party demoting best-mate Crutchlow in the process, leaving the Brit heading the second row ahead of Quartararo and Bradl. Zarco, Viñales and Pol Espargaro will line up on row three with Alex Rins, Nakagami and a despondent Andrea Dovizioso rounding out the top-12.
