MotoGP Argentina GP: Espargaro takes historic first Aprilia pole, Rossi's team stars

Having topped practice outright on the revised Saturday schedule forced upon MotoGP by freight delays in Argentina, Espargaro carried that form into Q2 to score his first pole since he was a Suzuki rider in 2015 at Barcelona.

Maverick Vinales set the early benchmark on the first of the Aprilias at 1m38.880s, but team-mate Espargaro was lighting up the timing screens on his first flying lap.

Espargaro hooked the lap together to produce a 1m38.108s to go fastest of all ahead of Pramac’s Jorge Martin and world champion Fabio Quartararo on the only Yamaha in Q2.

Just as Espargaro shot to the top of the order, Jack Miller added to an already difficult day for the factory Ducati squad when he crashed at Turn 1 with just under five minutes of the session gone and wrecked one of his GP22s.

Before he’d even taken to the Rio Hondo circuit, Joan Mir was dealt a setback when his number one Suzuki encountered a technical issue as he was about to leave his garage.

Forced to head out on his second bike, Mir was only seventh after his first run as team-mate Alex Rins sat in fifth.

With just over a minute remaining, Pramac’s Jorge Martin dipped underneath the 1m38s for the first time this weekend with a 1m37.889s to take over provisional pole.

Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

But Espargaro monstered the end to his final flying lap to produce a 1m37.668s to claim Aprilia’s first pole of the modern four-stroke MotoGP era.

Martin held onto second, while MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi’s brother Marini gave VR46 its first front row in the premier class when he shot to third late on – the Italian only taking delivery of his Ducati at the early hours of Saturday morning having been badly affected by the