Having taken a maiden pole last month in Indonesia, Marini added a second to his career tally when he fired in a 1m51.762s at the end of Q2 on his VR46 Ducati.
He denied Gresini’s Fabio Di Giannantonio, who Marini is now also likely to beat to the vacant factory Honda seat for 2024, a second career pole, while Alex Marquez completed the front row.
The championship challengers will start alongside each other in Saturday afternoon’s sprint and Sunday’s grand prix, with championship leader Francesco Bagnaia heading Jorge Martin in fourth.
Di Giannantonio set the early pace in the 15-minute pole shootout session, the Italian posting a new lap record of 1m52.188s as his opening effort.
Bagnaia had Honda’s Marc Marquez in tow but went fifth, while Martin was third after his second flying lap, having been forced to abort his first when he almost hit Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro into Turn 12 while following him.
With just under three minutes to go, Di Giannantonio began lighting up the timing screens again and produced the first-ever sub-1m52s tour of the newly resurfaced Losail circuit.
Di Giannantonio’s 1m51.829s looked like it would be enough to keep him on pole for the first time in 2023.
However, a 1m51.762s from Marini on the VR46-run 2022-spec Ducati gave him his second pole of the season.
Source: Autosport