FLYING START FOR DOV
Italian has them trailing in his wake under the lights
ANDREA DOVIZIOSO drew 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 free practice sessions ahead of tomorrow’s season-opener at the Losail International Circuit.
The Italian looked comfortable all day on the Ducati, and waited until the closing minutes to set his hot lap of 1m 54.361secs.
“This year I think we are in a better situation in every way,” he said. “From my side and from the bike side.
“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 this weekend.
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 didn’t get off to the best of starts when he suffered early mechanical problems yesterday.
Following the dramatic spectacle of sparks flying from behind the Ducati on the main straight, it 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.
However, the big shock of the day came from independent Ducati pilot Danilo Petrucci, who came within 0.006secs of Dovizioso to finish second fastest, with Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Alex Rins third.
Proving that this year’s Suzuki machine is more than good enough to battle against the big boys, Italy’s Andrea Iannone wasn’t far behind, as he powered the second Ecstar bike to a respectable fifth.
Struggled
The defending champion Marc Marquez ended the day a lowly sixth, as once again the Repsol Honda struggled in Qatar. Marquez has only won one premier class race at Losail, and he’s keen to change that this weekend. Meanwhile, his team-mate Dani Pedrosa, who starts his 200th MotoGP race on Sunday, came alive in the final few minutes to set the seventh quickest time after spending much of the session out of the top 10. Britain’s Cal Crutchlow was eighth quickest on his new-look Castrol-liveried LCR Honda, ahead of Valentino Rossi, who struggled for pace. The next quickest Brit was Scott Redding, who crossed the line in 16th. Lincolnshire’s Sam Lowes ended the day second quickest behind Alex Marquez in the Moto2 class while John McPhee was back out in action in Moto3, finishing the second session in 15th spot aboard the CIP-Green Power KTM.