Ducati Festival, which placed four riders from satellite teams in the top positions and five bikes in the top five. Di Giannantonio (Gresini) set the fastest time and will start from the front row alongside Bezzecchi and Marini, both from VR46. Marc Márquez, who made it through Q1, suffered a bad crash as soon as the last phase of qualifying began and, although he returned to the track after the red flag, he did not get past 12th place. Aleix Espargaró, who is trying to challenge Quartararo for the World Cup, He will start seventh, just behind the Frenchman.
Saturday began with the dominance of Pecco Bagnaia, who set the fastest time in the third free practice in what was a Ducati festival, while Marc Márquez looked at the sky wishing for rain to mitigate his disaster.
Bezzecchi also suffered, who ended up in the stands, like Di Giannantonio. Finally Bagnaia, Aleix, Marini, Zarco, Bezzecchi, Bastianini, Martín, Pol Espargaró, Nakagami and Quartararo went directly to Q2. Q1 looked interesting, with powerful drivers in the fight to win the first two places in the playoffs: Viñales, Rins, Di Giannantonio, Oliveira, Miller, Mir, Álex Márquez, Brad Binder, Morbidelli, Pirro, Marc Márquez, Raúl Fernández , Gardner, Darryn Binder, Dovizioso and Savadori.
In the free quarters the panorama changed completely. Bastianini crashed at turn 15 coinciding with the first drops in sector four of the circuit. All the pilots rushed into their box when the rain began to squeeze in all sectors. Added to the inconvenience of the rain was the strong wind, which made driving difficult. The teams tried to prepare the bikes to complete a few laps in these conditions. In the end, the session was once again dominated by Bagnaia, followed by Bezzecchi and Marc Márquez. The rain minimized the problems that the Hondas are encountering.
Q1 started, in which Brad Binder and Oliveira took the lead, setting the best times. Marc Márquez suffered again. the rain subsided and some riders rode ‘slicks’, with the risk that this entailed. Pirro kicked the Portuguese out of second place with three minutes to go. But everything took a turn in the last two laps. Marc Márquez resurfaced, who took the lead, followed by Jack Miller and Di Giannantonio. The Italian from Gresini got his Ducati into Q2 and Oliveira relegated Márquez to third place that left him out of the play-offs but the Spaniard signed a last lap to frame to get the pass. Di Giannantonio and Márquez joined the ten drivers who were already qualified to fight for the top positions on the grid.
Little more than a minute had been played in Q2 when the stewards waved the red flag due to a fall by… Marc Márquez. The Honda rider came out very determined to get pole, but at turn 2 he went to tarmac. Spectacular somersault of the pilot and the motorcycle was left burning, destroyed, in the middle of the track. The luck of the ilerdense is that he did not suffer physical damage and at no time was he seen to hurt. He was thundering at Mugello, the sky was darkening and the drivers were waiting for the track to be cleared pondering what strategy to adopt regarding the tyres. The pilots came out again. Everyone except Marc, who left his bike ready but without deciding to go out until the weather only allowed for a couple of laps. Meanwhile, Zarco had unhorsed Di Giannantonio from first place. A first place that Bezzecchi and later Bagnaia tried before he returned to Di Giannantonio. In the end, the Italian took the cat to the water, with Aleix seventh, Pol, ninth, Martín eleventh and Marc last of this group of twelve pilots.
