World champion Marc Marquez claimed his 11th pole position in 14 races this season with a new track record on Saturday for the Aragon Grand Prix.
The Spaniard smashed his own previous record in taking pole last year by 0.617sec to edge Honda teammate and compatriot Dani Pedrosa in 1min 47.187sec.
Italy’s Andrea Iannone will also start on the front row in third, but there was disappointment for the Yamahas as Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo qualified in sixth and seventh respectively.
Marquez leads the championship standings by a mammoth 74 points, but endured by far the worst race of his season in San Marino two weeks ago as an early crash saw him finish 15th.
However, he is a heavy favourite to edge ever closer to his second world championship in as many years as a MotoGP rider with a 12th win of the season after a dominant qualifying session on home soil.
Victory on Sunday would take Marquez level with Australia’s Michael Doohan, who won 12 races in 1997, the record for most victories in one season in the sport’s elite division.
The 21-year-old broke the track record on his first flying lap, but was usurped by Pedrosa midway through the session as he moved into provisional pole position.
Marquez wasn’t to be denied, though, as he went over three tenths of a second quicker than Pedrosa on his final lap.
“Dani here is always really fast here,” said Marquez.
“I have felt so good during the whole weekend and when I saw P2 on the board I knew I had to push a little bit more and it was enough for the pole.”
Nine-time world champion Rossi’s return to form with a first victory of the season in San Marino failed to continue as both Yamaha riders struggled to compete with the times set by the Hondas.
Rossi was marginally the better by two hundredths of a second to sneak onto the second row alongside Spain’s Pol Espargaro in fourth and Britain’s Cal Crutchlow, who qualified in an impressive fifth.
“A difficult practice yesterday and also today as we are suffering from a lack of grip,” said Rossi.
“It’s difficult to ride the bike at the limit as after some laps it starts to slide a lot. We worked very hard with the team to try and improve some different settings.
“It looks like this afternoon we found some things so I will start from the second row, which is not so bad, it’s quite good. Now we have to try to find some small improvement for the warm up and for the race so we can try to do the maximum tomorrow afternoon.”