Favourite Dovi up for the battle
ANDREA DOVIZIOSO took first blood under the floodlights of Qatar as he stormed to the top of the free practice timesheets last night.
The 2017 runner-up emerged fastest in both sessions ahead of tomorrow’s season-opener at the Losail International Circuit.
The Italian looked comfortable all day on his Ducati, and waited until the closing minutes to set his hot lap of 1m 54.361secs.
“We are in a better situation in every way, from my side and from the bike side,” said Dovizioso, below. “It doesn’t mean we can fight for the championship but we are in a much better place than we were last year.”
As the pre-season favourite, Dovizioso will have to be wary of his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, who starts his second term with Ducati.
And, having finally got to grips with the machine in the closing stages of this year, he could throw a big spanner in the works.
With more wins at Losail than any other rider, Lorenzo did not get off to the best of starts when he suffered early mechanical problems yesterday.
The dramatic spectacle of sparks flying from behind the Ducati on the main straight was later found to have been caused by a loose chain hitting the swing-arm. The Spaniard was called in immediately, but was able to bounce back on his second bike as he set the fourth fastest time of the day with a few minutes to go.
With changes to regulations this year designed to bring the whole grid closer together, things were close at the top, with half a second covering the top 10 and the top 14 all within one second.
The big shock of the day came from independent Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci, who came within 0.006secs of Dovizioso to finish second quickest. Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Alex Rins was third. Defending champion Marc Marquez ended the day a lowly sixth, as once again the Repsol Honda struggled at Qatar. Marquez has won only one premier class race at Losail, and is keen to change that.
His team-mate Dani Pedrosa – who starts his 200th MotoGP race tomorrow – came alive in the final few minutes as he set the seventh quickest time after spending much of the session out of the top 10. Britain’s Cal Crutchlow was eighth quickest, piloting his new-look Castrol-liveried LCR Honda, ahead of Valentino Rossi, who struggled to find the pace of the front runners.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Johann Zarco showed little of the form which had powered him to the fastest time in testing, as he just managed to round out the top 10. Adding to Yamaha’s woes, Rossi’s Movistar Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales could only manage to scrape together the 11th quickest lap, a far cry from a year ago when he dominated the whole weekend and went on to win the race.
The next quickest Briton was Scott Redding, the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini rider crossing the line 16th, as Bradley Smith found his Red Bull KTM machine did not give him wings and he was left languishing down in 20th.