Movistar Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales has completed a clean sweep of MotoGP pre-season test results, finishing the final day at Qatar at the top of the timesheets leaving the young Spaniard unbeaten as he eyes the opening race at Losail in a couple of weeks.
Vinales set a 1’54.330 on his 33rd lap of 60 today but was chased by the works Ducati of Andrea Dovizios who ended just 0.071s in arrears while Dani Pedrosa made a miraculous recovery to set the third quickest time and end just 0.068s behind the Desmosedici while team-mate and reigning champion Marc Marquez crashed three times, once with the new fairing that contributed to one of his Friday spills.
Former champion Jorge Lorenzo, who said yesterday he would struggle to win in Qatar with the GP17, was fourth quickest while Alvaro Bautista got off the floor to set a 1’54.714 on his satellite Pull&Bear Ducati. The Spaniard is less than four-tenths slower than Vinales while Scott Redding - also on a satellite GP16 - was fifth and just 0.036s behind Bautista.
It is Valentino Rossi who occupies sixth place on the combined timesheets, his lap of 1’54.732 just ahead of Redding’s from today but the Italian wasn’t able to repeat that today, going four-tenths slower but The Doctor said last night he was happy with his one-lap pace and was working on race distance today.
Rookie Jonas Folger took his Monster Yamaha to seventh today and eighth overall just ahead of Cal Crutchlow who set his quickest time of 1’54.821 on his 64th lap of 70. Johann Zarco, also a rookie, was tenth and outpaced Marquez by a little less than a tenth of a second.
Aleix Espargaro didn’t better his time from yesterday after a crash today and sits in 12th overall, just ahead of Ecstar Suzuki’s Andrea Iannone. Karel Abraham banged in a 1’55.333 to convince sceptics his performance on Friday wasn’t just a fluke. Alex Rins, on the second Suzuki, completed the top 15.
Britain’s Sam Lowed ended his test in 19th place and 1.837s off the pace whole Bradley Smith was the quickest of the KTMs in 21st with a 1’56.371.
