Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales set the pace on the second day of the Qatar MotoGP pre-season test on Thursday, though the times at the top were much closer than expected.
Vinales posted a best of 1m55.436s, which put him just +0.072s ahead of Ducati’s Andrea Iannone, whilst Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo was a further +0.027s off, meaning the top three manufacturer teams were covered by less than a tenth.
Further back saw similar gaps, with first to 12th covered by less than a second.
The conditions improved later in the evening allowing for some competitive lap times, with Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez and Lorenzo trading fastest laps for much of the early session before Rossi and Marquez eventually dropped down the order to finish eighth and ninth respectively.
Danilo Petrucci stand-in Michele Pirro suffered a fall on his Octo Pramac bike, eventually posting 21 laps in total, but he left his team a lot of work to prepare his bike for day three of the test.
Marquez was another faller. The Honda rider suffered a high-speed crash at Turn 1 and failed to improve on his lap-time after that.
Scott Redding and Hector Barbera were once again inside the top five with both riders getting into the 1m55s for the first time at the test.
Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa were sixth and seventh, with both enjoying relatively trouble-free running.
Completing the top ten was Aleix Espargaro. The Suzuki rider got to sample the fully seamless gearbox on his 2016 machine for the first time, he therefore spent much of the session familiarising himself with the bike.
| Pos | Rider | Team | Fastest lap | Lead. Gap | Laps | |
| 1 | VIÑALES, Maverick | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | 1:55.436 | 28 / 42 | ||
| 2 | IANNONE, Andrea | Ducati Team | 1:55.508 | 0.072 | 25 / 41 | |
| 3 | LORENZO, Jorge | Movistar Yamaha MotoGP | 1:55.535 | 0.099 | 14 / 48 | |
| 4 | REDDING, Scott | Octo Pramac Yakhnich | 1:55.677 | 0.241 | 32 / 43 | |
| 5 | BARBERA, Hector | Avintia Racing | 1:55.815 | 0.379 | 20 / 35 | |
| 6 | DOVIZIOSO, Andrea | Ducati Team | 1:55.856 | 0.420 | 40 / 46 | |
| 7 | PEDROSA, Dani | Repsol Honda Team | 1:55.857 | 0.421 | 42 / 42 | |
| 8 | ROSSI, Valentino | Movistar Yamaha MotoGP | 1:55.947 | 0.511 | 24 / 56 | |
| 9 | MARQUEZ, Marc | Repsol Honda Team | 1:56.046 | 0.610 | 4 / 42 | |
| 10 | ESPARGARO, Aleix | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | 1:56.126 | 0.690 | 20 / 32 | |
| 11 | ESPARGARO, Pol | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 1:56.173 | 0.737 | 16 / 30 | |
| 12 | BAZ, Loris | Avintia Racing | 1:56.427 | 0.991 | 27 / 45 | |
| 13 | CRUTCHLOW, Cal | LCR Honda | 1:56.584 | 1.148 | 48 / 50 | |
| 14 | HERNANDEZ, Yonny | Aspar MotoGP Team | 1:56.667 | 1.231 | 13 / 38 | |
| 15 | RABAT, Tito | EG 0.0 Marc VDS | 1:57.263 | 1.827 | 29 / 49 | |
| 16 | SMITH, Bradley | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 1:57.267 | 1.831 | 7 / 14 | |
| 17 | LAVERTY, Eugene | Aspar MotoGP Team | 1:57.670 | 2.234 | 25 / 41 | |
| 18 | BAUTISTA, Alvaro | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | 1:57.721 | 2.285 | 28 / 36 | |
| 19 | MILLER, Jack | EG 0.0 Marc VDS | 1:57.789 | 2.353 | 4 / 20 | |
| 20 | PIRRO, Michele | Octo Pramac Yakhnich | 1:58.113 | 2.677 | 16 / 21 | |
| 21 | AOYAMA, Hiroshi | HRC Test Team | 1:58.347 | 2.911 | 60 / 62 | |
| 22 | BRADL, Stefan | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | 1:58.418 | 2.982 | 8 / 16 |
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