Marquez emerged from the box again as he went for the two-stop Q2 strategy, but his second run was ruined at the first corner after a slight mistake under braking. He headed straight back to the pits and with five minutes remaining, the 12 riders were back out on circuit with fresh rubber at their disposal for a shot at pole.

And a shot at pole is exactly what seven riders were going for as seven red sectors lit up the timing screens in FP1. Viñales was the first to overhaul Marquez but it was Miller’s time that was raising eyebrows.

The Australian was 0.4 under after three sectors but he lost it all in the final sector as Dovizioso and Rossi slotted in behind Viñales. But, as ever, Marquez was in the hunt and he tamed his RC213V to grab Termas pole by 0.154 - his fifth in six years in Argentina.

Crutchlow was the only rider in attack mode in the final 30 seconds of qualifying and having been pushed down to eighth, last year’s Argentina winner needed to pull something out of the hat. But a mistake in sector three when under a tenth off Marquez put an end to his front row hopes.

This left Marquez as the man to spearhead the grid in Argentina, with Yamaha’s Viñales and Ducati’s Dovizioso joining him on the front row. Rossi will launch from P4, ten places higher than where he started in Qatar, with last season’s pole man Miller completing a top five covered by just 0.244.