Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales topped the lone MotoGP test day at Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona as both Honda riders had a tumble.
Vinales set a 1m38.967s towards the end of the day at Barcelona, a day after his grand prix was ruined by a pile-up cause by Honda’s Jorge Lorenzo. Vinales completed 98 laps as he headed a Yamaha 1-2 from Petronas SRT’s Franco Morbidelli.
The Italian set a 1m39.014s with Catalan GP winner and Honda’s Marc Marquez (1m39.257s) in third, who had three bikes at his disposal to test. One of them looked like a 2018 model while one to be his standard and other one being carbon covered.
The Spaniard had a crash at Turn 4 while teammate Lorenzo had his at Turn 9. Morbidelli did 78 laps with Marquez completing 80 laps to be ahead of Suzuki’s Alex Rins (1m39.334s) and Petronas Yamaha SRT’s Fabio Quartararo (1m39.428s) in the Top 5.
Rins topped the morning session and did 75 laps with Quartararo doing 56 – the former ran an upgraded chassis. Pramac Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia (1m39.466s) finished sixth as the leading Ducati with 54 laps which included a crash at Turn 13.
LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami (1m39.555s) finished seventh as the Japanese got a chance to ride the 2019 machine, with him completing 59 laps to be ahead of Suzuki’s Joan Mir (1m39.670s), Pramac’s Jack Miller (1m39.745s) and LCR’s Cal Crutchlow (1m39.903s).
Mir did 67 laps to Miller completing 60 and Crutchlow 73, with the Australian testing a new ‘salad box’ device and the Brit running new aerodynamic device. The Ducati factory pair of Danilo Petrucci (1m39.917s) and Andre Dovizioso (1m39.925s) were 11th and 12th.
The former did 57 laps with the latter completing 63 in a carbon reinforced chassis. Avintia Ducati’s Tito Rabat (1m39.938s) finished 13th ahead of Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi (1m39.968s) with the Spaniard doing 75 laps to the Italian’s 71.
Rabat had a fall at Turn 4 while Rossi rode through ankle pain after his grand prix crash. The lead KTM was of Johann Zarco (1m40.197s) in 15th from Pol Espargaro (1m40.201s) – who had a fall at crash at Turn 2 – with Lorenzo (1m40.564s) only 17th.
The Frenchman did 70 laps with his teammate doing 57 and Lorenzo 65. Test rider Bradley Smith (1m40.564s) led Aprilia’s charge in 18th from Andrea Iannone (1m40.606s) as Aleix Espargaro couldn’t take part as they tried a new carbon swingarm.
Smith did 88 laps with Iannone 76. Tech 3 KTM’s Miguel Oliveira (1m40.862s) was next in to be 20th ahead of Avintia Ducati’s Karel Abraham (1m41.100s) as he got sandwiched with Hafizh Syahrin (1m41.162s) in 22nd.
The Portuguese completed 61 laps with the Czech only doing 35 and the Malaysian 52 as they headed Suzuki tester Sylvain Guintoli (1m41.243s), Honda tester Stefan Bradl (1m41.429s) and KTM tester Dani Pedrosa (1m41.824s).
Pedrosa seemed to be running a new tail section on the KTM as the Spaniard returned to track testing ahead of the last weekend’s MotoGP grand prix weekend to do 51 laps in Barcelona, while Bradl completed 84 and Guintoli 69.
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