Viñales leads a testing day in which three Yamahas have finished on Top 3. Honda and Ducati have been the closest manufacturers to Yamaha. It’s been a day with many accidents and we’ve seen Ducati’s new fairing.
Maverick Viñales, who already took best time in Sepang and Phillip Island, has lead testing day in Losail, with a 1:54.455. Behind Viñales have finished Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi and Jonas Folger.
A solid Cal Crutchlow has finished on fourth position, being the best Honda for second consecutive day. In fifth has finished a surprising Aleix Espargaró, who was six tenths behind Viñales on his Aprilia. Behind Espargaró was reigning champion Marc Márquez.
Despite Yamaha’s domain, Ducati has also been important. They’ve surprised everyone in the paddock unveiling a revolutionary fairing, made to compensate winglets ban. Andrea Dovizioso tested Ducati’s “invention”, but he finished on 13th place, more than one second behinb Viñales. His teammate, Jorge Lorenzo, who is still getting used to the Desmosedici GP17, finished eighth. The one who keeps with good results is Álvaro Bautista, who finished seventh with his GP16.
Not that good has been the day for Suzuki. with its tho drivers more than one second behind the lead. Andrea Iannone has finished 12th and beats his teammate Álex Rins again. Álex, who finished 17th, is still on adaptation process.
Apart from solid times for Crutchlow and Márquez, it hasn’t been a good day for Honda, with Dani Pedrosa struggling again and unable to perform better than 16th position.
On last places can be found rookie Sam Lowes, who is also getting used to top class and is being easiliy beating by his teammate; and KTMs, which seem not to have found pace yet and have finished more than 2 seconds behind the lead.
It has been a very accidented day, with almost half the grid crashing. Apart from Lorenzo‘s first incident as a Ducati rider, Rossi, Lowes, Bautista, Crutchlow, Aleix Espargaró, Bradley Smith Jack Miller and Danilo Petrucci suffered crashes.
Last day of testing will start on March 12th at 16:00 local. Season will officialy begin on March 23th with Qatar GP, whose race is set to be run on March 26th.
