Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales topped Day 1 of the Qatar MotoGP test at Losail International Circuit with Suzuki’s Alex Rins and Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso in second and third respectively.
Vinales set the quickest time of 1m55.051s late in the day with 50 laps in his kitty with Rins (1m55.159s) in second to displace early leader Dovizioso (1m55.550s) as the former undertook 48 laps to only 29 for the latter.
Dovizioso headed Ducati teammate Danilo Petrucci (1m55.594s) with the Italian completing 37 laps as Vinales’ Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi (1m55.604s) ended up fifth with 47 laps to his name.
Avintia Ducati’s Tito Rabat (1m55.694s) continued his fine run to be sixth with Petronas Yamaha SRT’s Fabio Quartararo (1m55.772s) – the lead rookie – seventh, ahead of the lead Honda rider, LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami (1m55.943s).
Rabat completed 44 laps with Quartararo doing 49 and Nakagami 45. The Top 10 was rounded out by KTM’s Pol Espargaro (1m56.040s) and Honda’s Marc Marquez (1m56.167s) with the duo completing 47 and 34 laps respectively.
The reigning MotoGP champion had a fall at Turn 16 but he could rejoin later on. It was his first fall though of 2019 as he recovers from his shoulder injury. Suzuki’s Joan Mir (1m56.264s) was next in 11th with 52 laps onboard.
The next trio, Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro (1m56.358s) & Andrea Iannone (1m56.447s) and Petronas Yamaha SRT’s Franco Morbidelli (1m56.511s) slotted in 12th, 13th and 14th respectively and all three suffered crashes.
They did 34, 30 and 47 laps in all as the lead Pramac Ducati rider of Francesco Bagnaia (1m56.738s) was 15th from KTM’s Johann Zarco (1m56.770s) and Tech 3 KTM’s Miguel Oliveira (1m56.891s) as they completed 45, 53 and 42 laps in all.
LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow (1m56.921s) – who is also recovering from an ankle surgery – was 18th ahead of Pramac Ducati’s Jack Miller (1m56.932s) with Avintia Ducati’s Karel Abraham (1m57.053s) in 20th as they did 43, 46 and 39 laps.
The returning Jorge Lorenzo (1m57.090s) saw him finish 21st in his first Honda run in 2019 with 38 laps in his kitty as Aprilia’s test rider Bradley Smith (1m57.137s) and Tech 3 KTM’s Hafizh Syahrin (1m57.459s) rounded out the 23 finishers with 48 and 44 laps each.
