Image: Supplied.

Monster Yamaha Tech3’s Johann Zarco has taken the first pole position of the 2018 MotoGP World Championship season with a record-breaking lap in Qatar.

The Frenchman set a 1m53.680s in a scorching lap of Losail Circuit, topping reigning champion Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda) by two-tenths and top Ducati Danilo Petrucci (Alma Pramac Racing).

Behind the top three, Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda Castrol) was next up heading the second row to make it 75 percent Independent Team riders in the top four, with Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) – the man on provisional pole after the first run – taking the middle of row two.

Alex Rins (Team Suzuki Ecstar) meanwhile kept his great pace at Losail rolling for his best-ever qualifying position to lock out the second row, after Suzuki mounted the biggest challenge to Ducati on Friday. Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) leads the third row from Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha) and Ducati Team’s Jorge Lorenzo.

Queenslander Jack Miller (Alma Pramac Racing) completed the top 10 after moving through Q1, with Andrea Iannone (Team Suzuki Ecstar) in P11 to make it more than 10 riders within a second of pole. Last year’s pole-setter and winner Maverick Vinales (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) lines up 12th.

In Moto2 it’s been a faultless weekend so far for Alex Marquez (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) at the Qatar GP and that continued in qualifying, with the Spaniard setting an unbeatable time that took him to the top of the order midway through the session to stake an early claim on the first win of the year.

He will be joined on the front row by a resurgent Lorenzo Baldassarri (Pons HP40), with his countryman Francesco Bagnaia (SKY Racing Team VR46) completing the front row, just over half-a-second adrift of pole, as Australia’s Remy Gardner rode his Tech3 Racing entry to P12.

Niccolo Antonelli (SIC58 Squadra Corse) has taken pole for the first Moto3 race of the 2018 season, setting a 2m06.364s to take his first pole in two years to mark the first time ever that Paolo Simoncelli’s team will head the grid in Moto3. He topped Jorge Martin (Del Conca Gresini Moto3) and Gabriel Rodrigo (RBA BOE Skull Rider).

Detailed results