The MotoGP Qatar Grand Prix Warm-Up left no big doubts about what the tire choice will be for today’s long race, given that all 21 riders who took to the track worked with a pair of hard tires in the 10 minutes available.
But there were no big doubts, given that Michelin yesterday already detected consumption in the Sprint in line with what it would have expected for the actual GP. Inevitably, today’s match promises to be a great management match and therefore the choices could not go in a different direction.
As mentioned, only 21 riders participated in the session because Miguel Oliveira was declared unfit after the fracture of his right shoulder blade suffered in the accident with Aleix Espargaro which occurred in the early stages of yesterday’s Sprint. The official Aprilia rider, who himself fractured his fibula head, assessed his condition and completed 5 laps, finishing with the 15th time and a delay of just over a second.
The fastest in the end was his teammate Maverick Vinales, who stopped the clock with a time of 1’53″346. The Spaniard preceded a French tandem made up of Johann Zarco’s Ducati Pramac and Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha , separated by 236 and 341 thousandths respectively.
In fourth place is the Gresini Racing Ducati ridden by Alex Marquez, who is last under a half-second gap, and is followed closely by the two KTMs of Brad Binder and Jack Miller. Seventh time then for Marc Marquez’s Honda, which pays six tenths and precedes the other Yamaha of Franco Morbidelli.
We therefore have to go down to ninth place to find world leader Pecco Bagnaia, who tried a new tire on the rear, also because he wanted to evaluate whether it was actually the problem that slowed him down in yesterday’s Sprint. But the Piedmontese didn’t even like the changes that the Borgo Panigale engineers had thought up to try and react to the difficulties of the short race.
His rival Jorge Martin, on the other hand, had to settle for 16th place with his Prima Pramac Racing Ducati, but he did a very different job, because he used the same tire with which he won the Sprint, precisely with the intention of evaluate his behavior in the final laps of the race, which risk being the crucial ones this evening.
Other of the most anticipated protagonists for today were also delayed, namely Fabio Di Giannantonio and Luca Marini, both of whom were on the podium yesterday, and who finished 12th and 20th fastest. The Mooney VR46 rider was the least convinced of the hard tire on the front after racing yesterday with the soft, but now he too seems to have gone in that direction.
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