Marc Marquez obliterated the Misano lap record to seal the sixth MotoGP pole of his rookie season.

Yamaha pair Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi will share the front row with the Spaniard, with Dani Pedrosa heading Cal Crutchlow and Aspar CRT rider Aleix Espargaro on row two.

Marquez came into the session as favourite after scoring a clean sweep of every practice session, although he had also suffered a fall at Turn 13 in the final session just 15 minutes before qualifying began.

That did nothing to disrupt his momentum however and, after Lorenzo briefly headed the timesheets, he hit the front with a 1m33.404s. That ultimately would have been enough for pole, but on his final flyer Marquez broke new ground when he became the first MotoGP rider to lap Misano in the 1m32s bracket, shattering Casey Stoner’s previous lap record.

Lorenzo had got to within three hundredths of Marquez before that late improvement, but was forced to settle for second, half a second down. Rossi, meanwhile, secured his first front row since the Sachsenring in July as he came home third, two tenths up on Pedrosa.

As he did so he also helped tow Espargaro to an incredible sixth, with the Spaniard the only CRT rider to make it into the pole shootout beating the satellite Hondas and works Ducatis to sixth.

Stefan Bradl was 0.07sec down the road in seventh, leaving him at the head of a third row he will share with Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista and Andrea Dovizioso. Nicky Hayden, Michele Pirro and Andrea Iannone complete an all-Ducati row four.

Crutchlow had been forced to participate in Q1 for the first time this year after struggling during practice, but alongside Pirro was able to escape into Q2 and found sizeable gains to capture fifth.

Tech 3 teammate Bradley Smith could not do the same and was knocked out in Q1, and will therefore start ahead of Colin Edwards and Hiroshi Aoyama in 13th place.

Pos Rider             Bike                     Time       Gap 1. Marc Marquez      Honda                    1m32.915s 2. Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                   1m33.428s  +0.513s 3. Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                   1m33.573s  +0.658s 4. Dani Pedrosa      Honda                    1m33.726s  +0.811s 5. Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha            1m34.014s  +1.099s 6. Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia            1m34.028s  +1.113s 7. Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda                1m34.098s  +1.183s 8. Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda            1m34.230s  +1.315s 9. Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                   1m34.338s  +1.423s10. Nicky Hayden      Ducati                   1m34.362s  +1.447s11. Michele Pirro     Pramac Ducati            1m34.467s  +1.552s12. Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati            1m34.519s  +1.604s13. Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha            1m34.869s  +1.954s14. Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki     1m35.174s  +2.259s15. Hiroshi Aoyama    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki     1m35.534s  +2.619s16. Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia            1m35.596s  +2.681s17. Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki     1m35.866s  +2.951s18. Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki     1m35.885s  +2.970s19. Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW           1m36.027s  +3.112s20. Michael Laverty   PBM-Aprilia              1m36.788s  +3.873s21. Yonny Hernandez   PBM Aprilia              1m36.844s  +3.929s22. Karel Abraham     Cardion Aprilia          1m36.877s  +3.962s23. Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda        1m37.283s  +4.368s24. Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW           1m37.886s  +4.971s