Spanish rookie Pedro Acosta took pole position on Saturday for the Japan MotoGP sprint and Grand Prix as championship leader Jorge Martin crashed out of qualifying.
READ | SA's Brad Binder tops Japan MotoGP practice
GasGas rider Acosta claimed his first ever MotoGP pole with a blistering lap of 1min 43.018sec at Motegi, 0.246sec ahead of Italy's defending world champion Francesco Bagnaia.
Pramac rider Martin finished in 11th place after sliding off his bike late in the session amid intermittent rain.
Martin leads Bagnaia by 21 points in the overall championship standings with five races remaining.
Spain's six-time world champion Marc Marquez thought he had set a new course record when he clocked a scintillating lap time of 1:42.868.
But the time was wiped off when the Gresini rider was judged to have exceeded track limits and he eventually finished ninth.
The 20-year-old Acosta became the third-youngest rider ever to take pole position for a MotoGP race.
"We need to be happy because we see that from the last four, five races we can put everything together and we are getting more competitive in every race," he said.
"We need to be happy and calm for this afternoon."
Front row
Pedro Acosta (ESP/GasGaS-Tech3), Francesco Bagnaia (ITA/Ducati), Maverick Vinales (ESP/Aprilia)
2nd row
Enea Bastianini (ITA/Ducati), Brad Binder (RSA/KTM), Franco Morbidelli (ITA/Ducati-Pramac)
3rd row
Fabio Di Giannantonio (ITA/Ducati-VR46), Marco Bezzecchi (ITA/Ducati-VR46), Marc Marquez (ESP/Ducati-Gresini)
4th row
Alex Marquez (ESP/Ducati-Gresini), Jorge Martin (ESP/Ducati-Pramac), Fabio Quartararo (FRA/Yamaha)
5th row
Raul Fernandez (ESP/Aprilia-Trackhouse), Jack Miller (AUS/KTM), Aleix Espargaro (ESP/Aprilia)
6th row
Johann Zarco (FRA/Honda-LCR), Joan
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