Estrella Galicia 0,0’s Sergio Garcia started 2020 just like he ended 2019, with the young Spaniard topping the first Moto3 session of the year in Qatar
Garcia was a tenth clear of SIC58 Squadra Corse’s Tatsuki Suzuki in second, with former teammate Alonso Lopez, now with the Sterilgarda Max Racing Team, sat third quickest.
First out on track in 2020 was the CIP Green Power duo of Darryn Binder and Max Kofler and didn’t take long for someone to receive the unwanted tag of the first crash of the year. 2020’s unfortunate winner went to SKY Racing Team VR46’s Andrea Migno after he tucked the front at Turn 10, but Aspar Team’s Albert Arenas wasn’t too far behind him, crashing at Turn 16.
Garcia jumped to the top of the timesheets with his penultimate lap of FP1, with Suzuki and Lopez unable to better his time.
Honda Team Asia’s Ai Ogura was four-tenths adrift in fourth, with BOE Skull Rider Facile Energy’s Ricardo Rossi inside the top five.
Filip Salac, who topped the recent test here, ended in sixth place with Kaito Toba seventh. Tony Arbolino, Dennis Foggia and Darryn Binder completed the top ten with Scotland’s John McPhee in 11th and eight-tenths off the pace.
The top 16 were covered by less than a second, plus the lightweight class rookies look competitive in 2020 too as Deniz Öncü ended fastest of the debutants in twelfth.
