Marquez is on the verge of his seventh world championship crown and can seal the deal if he finishes the weekend at Motegi with three more points than his brother and closest rival Alex Marquez.

Alex Marquez will start from eighth on the grid after being forced to come through the first qualifying session for the first time this season.

Bagnaia, who won both the sprint and the grand prix in Japan last year, took pole in a track-record time of 1 minute 42.911 seconds in cool, dry conditions.

Honda’s Joan Mir was second, 0.092 seconds behind, with Marc Marquez 0.132 seconds off the fellow Ducati of Bagnaia.

“Nobody said that it would be easy,” said Marquez, who crashed in Saturday morning’s free practice.

“I feel better and better. It’s true that I had a small crash. It affected a bit the confidence, but then in qualifying I felt comfortable with the bike.”

Spain’s Marquez is looking to win his first world title since 2019 and has been in commanding form this season.

He has 11 Grand Prix wins, and his 512 championship points are already a single-season record for a MotoGP rider.

He can take a giant step towards the title in Saturday’s sprint, with the grand prix to come on Sunday.

Bagnaia, a two-time world champion, has struggled this season and currently sits third in the overall standings.

But the Italian rolled back the years with his record-breaking lap, coming through late to knock Mir off the top of the timesheets.

“It’s incredible the feeling that I’m having,” said Bagnaia.

“I feel that I can push, I feel that I can do what I want with my bike, which was something that was missing from last year.”

Pedro Acosta qualified fourth despite missing 10 minutes of the session after a technical problem with his KTM bike.

Fabio Quartararo was fifth, followed by Franco Morbidelli, Luca Marini and Alex Marquez.