Marco Bezzecchi claimed pole position for the San Marino MotoGP on Saturday as the flying Marquez brothers were denied a one-two in the final seconds of qualifying.

Aprilia rider Bezzecchi delighted the Italian crowd at the Marco Simoncelli circuit in Misano Adriatico by clocking a top time of one minute and 30.134 seconds, just 0.088sec ahead of Alex Marquez.

"It's fantastic, I had a very good lap, a very good morning overall. Very happy about my performance, also the team obviously did a wonderful job," said Bezzecchi.

"Happy to make a good show for them (the fans), and we have to concentrate on the race this afternoon and especially tomorrow."

Alex Marquez had looked to be heading for a second pole in as many weeks ahead of his sibling and runaway championship leader Marc Marquez until Bezzecchi's rapid final lap gave the 26-year-old Italian a second pole of the season.

And Marc Marquez was denied a place on the front row for both Saturday's sprint race and the Grand Prix on Sunday by former MotoGP champion Fabio Quartararo, who had to come through the first qualifying session but secured third place on the grid at the last by finishing 0.94sec behind Bezzecchi.

"I always put a lot of energy on one lap, this is my strongest point, but today I didn't expect to make P3, especially with this lap as I made a few mistakes," said Frenchman Quartararo.

"Let's see what we can do in the race."

However Marc Marquez still has a chance to further increase his whopping 182-point championship lead over Alex Marquez, as he has won 14 of this season's 15 sprints.

Barring disaster at Misano, the Spaniard will have a chance to win the title at the Japan MotoGP in a fortnight, moving level on seven championship triumphs with his great rival Valentino Rossi.

His Ducati teammate Francesco Bagnaia suffered another blow at his home track by finishing just eighth in qualifying, the two-time champion's worst ever starting grid position for a MotoGP race at his home track of Misano.

Bagnaia sits third in the championship standings but with seven GP weekends left to be completed the out-of-sorts Italian is 250 points behind Marc Marquez.

Joan Mir missed out on qualifying and will not take part in the sprint after the Honda rider failed to recover form a neck injury suffered in a crash during practice on Friday.