MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez beat Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa to pole position for the 800th premier class grand prix at Aragon.

Marquez went to the top of the order after his first flying lap and broke his own circuit record by 0.124 seconds in doing so, before going even quicker next time around with a 1m47.572s.

It looked like the reigning champion would then cruise to pole, but Pedrosa sprung a surprise by going 0.020s quicker than his compatriot before Marquez reclaimed pole with a last-gasp lap of 1m47.187s.

Andrea Iannone jumped up to third at the end to take his second consecutive front row start on Pramac’s revised Ducati and starts ahead of Pol Espargaro and the hugely impressive Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi on the second row.

Rossi salvaged his qualifying by setting the fastest time to top Q1 to progress to the pole position shootout and found further gains to finish 0.020s ahead of Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.

Stefan Bradl claimed eighth ahead of Andrea Dovizioso, whose chances of a decent starting position went out the window when he crashed in the final moments of the session.

Forward rider Aleix Espargaro rounds off the top 10, with Bradley Smith starting 11th after dumping his Tech 3 Yamaha at Turn 2, while Hector Barbera produced his best qualifying performance of the year to take 12th.

Nicky Hayden marked his MotoGP return after a lengthy lay-off due to wrist surgery by claiming 18th.

The former world champion has reported that his wrist is stiff this weekend, but is experiencing no pain with it.