Portugal Colonial - Championship leader Bezzecchi claims Italian MotoGP pole

Championship leader Bezzecchi flew round his home track in one minute and 43.921 seconds, 0.244sec faster than Raul Fernandez, to take his first pole since Thailand at the start of the season.

His closest challenger and teammate Jorge Martin rounded off the front row with a time that was 0.363sec slower.

The Aprilia rider's time was 0.248sec faster than the previous record established by Marc Marquez last season, the reigning MotoGP champion finishing 0.373sec off the pace in fourth.

Marc Marquez has been cleared to compete despite suffering a broken foot in a spectacular crash at the French MotoGP earlier this month.

The injury kept him out of the main race at Le Mans as well as the last race weekend in Barcelona where his brother Alex Marquez suffered a horrific crash which keeps him out of the grand prix in Italy and Hungary.

Fabio Di Giannantonio, who is third in the championship standings and was fastest in all three practice sessions, was 0.577 behind his fellow Italian Bezzecchi in seventh.

Bezzecchi leads Martin by 15 points ahead of Saturday's Sprint race, which starts at 3.00pm local time (1300 GMT), and Sunday's Grand Prix.

R.Veloso--PC