Doha: After the Sepang Test and Fabio Quartararo’s (Petronas Yamaha SRT) full house of fastest laps across the three days, it’s time for another three-day Official Test – the second and final, at Losail International Circuit in Qatar.
Yamaha certainly lead the battle on the timesheets as it stands, thanks to Quartararo.
But teammate Franco Morbidelli had some solid speed too, and Valentino Rossi (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) was up there as Sepang came to a close. His team-mate Maverick Viñales, the man who won the race in Malaysia last year, was not in terms of the timesheets – but he was also pretty positive and didn’t go for that all-out time-attack lap. Better top speed was something he pointed out, something high on the Iwata marque’s agenda.
Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda Castrol) flew the flag for Honda at Sepang, ending the test less than a tenth off Quartararo. The Briton also took on a huge workload for Honda, on serious testing duty.
With reigning Champion Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) – now signed up with Honda for another four years – coming back from shoulder surgery and his new team-mate a rookie in the form of Alex Marquez, Crutchlow had a long list of items to test. And both Repsol Honda Team Manager Alberto Puig and Marc Marquez raised a few questions about how prepared they were, so Qatar could be interesting.
Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda Idemitsu) will also be keen to test his physical condition further as he comes back from injury.
