The 2019 MotoGP pre-season concluded this week at the end of three days of running at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar, with the start of the new season now looming large on the horizon for the teams and riders.
So what did we learn from the Qatar test?
Maverick Vinales remains the world champion of testing, as he topped two of the three days and the overall timesheets with a 1:54.208s set on Monday's session. Vinales was strong on the Yamaha at Sepang, and was buoyed by the continual progress made in improving the bike's acceleration.
But he was wary. Sepang was a strong venue for Yamaha last season, with team-mate Valentino Rossi leading for much of the race before crashing in the latter stages.
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Losail has also typically been a happy Yamaha hunting ground, with the Iwata marque winning the Qatar Grand Prix eight times. So it was no surprise to see Vinales lead the way at the end of day one.
His pace, on both long runs and over a single lap, remained strong for the remainder of the test. But that didn't stop him from calling out Yamaha for failing to make any electronics gains in its bid to improve the M1's acceleration.
“Still we didn't find nothing on the electronics to improve the acceleration,” he said after Sunday's session, despite feeling happy with his overall pace.
An improvement failed to materialise on Monday, while a lack of edge grip on the dusty surface was highlighted as another issue facing Yamaha with its 2019 bike.
“We need to improve, I don't have really good grip on the edge [of the tyre] and I think our competitors, they take a lot of profit of the tyre on the edge. So we need to keep working, especially on that side.
"I think on the acceleration side we improve quite a lot since Sepang, and at the moment I'm quite satisfied with
what we have in the braking area. But in acceleration, we [still] need to improve.”
Rossi had a more mixed test. Fifth on the overall times, a low-key 19th on Sunday came with it some slightly disheartening comments from the Italian.
“On Saturday we had a base setting, I was not so bad. On Sunday we tried to improve, we tried some different settings, but also some different materials. Unfortunately, we didn't improve. It was a difficult day, I was always too slow, so we're not happy.”
Rossi vowed to work to improve this on Monday, and he did just that, though feels he still needs “something” more to fight come the first round.
Both Rossi and Vinales generally echoed comments over acceleration, while Sepang Racing's Franco Morbidelli also noted a lack of edge grip on his M1. But Vinales still feels the potential is there in this bike to be a title challenger.
Rossi said he trusted Vinales' feedback, but just as he has been all winter, there is much more skepticism in his words. This mixed reaction, which has gone on since November, over the new M1 makes it hard to exactly place Yamaha in the pecking order at present.
Ducati is a little easier to do so. While there were no headline-grabbing times from either Danilo Petrucci or Andrea Dovizioso in the test, it seems the GP19 is still arguably the best bike on the grid at present.
Petrucci complained he was not able to maximise fresh tyre performance during a time attack, but he did not work on this area on the final day. So ninth on the timesheets and six tenths adrift is largely unrepresentative.
What was much more telling was his race pace. Petrucci was one of only a few to complete a full race simulation on the wind-affected final day of running, and was in impressive form.
Just as they did at Sepang, the works Ducati pair ran line astern for the simulation, with each taking turns in the lead. Petrucci led for the first half of the stint, lapping consistently in the low-mid 1:55s bracket.
Dovizioso matched this, but once in front, the pace dropped into the low 1:56s. Dovizioso bailed out after four laps due to a front tyre issue, while Petrucci continued on, dipping back into the low 1:58s bracket as the run drew to a close.
Losail is very much a Ducati circuit, but the most encouraging aspect of that run for Petrucci is the confirmation of the GP19's ability to look after the rear tyre. The heaviest rider on the grid, Petrucci's 2019 season always hinged on Ducati developing a bike that would stop him overheating his rear tyre.
A new aero device underneath the bike, in front of the rear tyre, appeared on Jack Miller's Pramac GP19 at the start of the test before turning up on Petrucci's bike. It's unclear just what this device's purpose is, but it's most likely related to rear tyre cooling. Just how effective this is, remains to be seen.
Last year's Qatar race winner Dovizioso was a lowly 15th on the combined times at the end of the test. He admits he “lost a little bit the feeling” on his bike across the three days owing “strange conditions”, but did not believe this was anything to be “worried” about.
Honda has endured a less-than-ideal winter thanks to the injury woes for its works riders. However, despite Marc Marquez and LCR's Cal Crutchlow not being in peak physical condition during the Sepang test, the speed demonstrated by the pair suggested the 2019 RC213V had a very strong base set-up from which to build on in Qatar.
Marquez struggled on day one, though was quick to point out Honda's historical weakness at Losail. But he began to recover the situation enough for him to put Honda back into podium contention for the season-opener.
Jorge Lorenzo also finished strongly on his first outing on the Honda since breaking his scaphoid last month. Sixth overall, two places back from Marquez, he admits he hasn't had nearly enough time to be prepared for the first race, but was spurred on by the fact he was so quick despite riding below his maximum potential.
How the pair go when it comes to the race is unclear. Marquez's longest run on Monday was eight laps. They were a quick eight laps, comparable to the Ducatis and Vinales. But he does not yet know how his shoulder will fair over race distance. Likewise Lorenzo and his wrist.
In this instance, HRC would turn to Crutchlow to pick up the mantle. But the Briton feels he is “not even close” to being ready to start the season, as he struggled to find a set-up on the new bike.
His program in Qatar was disjointed. HRC requested items to be tested on Saturday, where he also suffered an engine failure. On Sunday he was comparing his bike with team-mate Takaaki Nakagami's 2018 machine, and on Monday he lost time when he crashed his only 2019 RC213V.
His main issue was the front-end, an area Marquez highlighted as still “critical” on the Honda. For Crutchlow, the new bike has lost the elements – stopping and turning – which made last year's bike so strong.
Qatar, then, will be a tough weekend for the Briton – though he is adamant his pace is better than the 17th he ended up on the timesheets.
Suzuki and Alex Rins have gone about their business this winter quietly, but effectively. The direction of development for the GSX-RR was largely sorted in November, with Suzuki not bringing anything major to Qatar as it sought to fine-tune its machine.
Rins was fastest on the second day and third overall. He never completed a long run of any considerable length, but they typically floated around the mid-high 1:55s area.
“We improved a little bit the braking stability, a little bit on the top speed, a little bit on the electronic area,” Rins noted of Suzuki's work in Qatar. He also complimented the Hamamatsu marque's efforts over the winter in reacting to all of his “requests” for the bike.
New rookie team-mate Joan Mir led Monday's session for a while, and put in a race stint which was not quite on the level of the frontrunners, but a certainly respectable run of tours at the low 1:56s mark for the rookie campaigner.
He'll have to dig a bit deeper next week if he is to come out of the season-opener top rookie, as SRT's Fabio Quartararo leaped up to second on the combined times on a slightly detuned 2019 M1, while completing a race run not that far outside of what Vinales lapped at.
Marquez pegged Suzuki to be title challengers this year, so to brand them a dark horse heading to the Qatar opener would something of an undersell. In the hands of Rins, it is exactly where it should be.
The same can't quite be said for Johann Zarco on the KTM. The previous double Moto2 champion had made some inroads in adapting to the RC16 in Malaysia, but found himself without “any corner speed” and “too slow” on race pace in Qatar. To boot, he was a second adrift of eighth-placed team-mate Pol Espargaro in 19th and unable to advance past 1:55.7s on a time attack.
Zarco's complaints regarding corner speed aren't unexpected. Coming from the ultra-smooth Yamaha, the Lorenzo-esque Zarco was always bound to struggle on the unconventional steel trellis frame favoured by KTM.
There were flashes of hope for Zarco. On Sunday he was just half as second outside of Espargaro's time having found a slight improvement. But finding a set-up which allows him to utilise his riding style is taking time, and on Sunday he accepted that fact.
His plight overshadowed some serious steps forward made by the Austrian outfit this winter. Espargaro was just 0.562s off the best pace overall, and led him to claim KTM can “think big” for the Qatar race. His long run pace isn't quite on par with the frontrunners, but not a million miles off at the low 1:56s bracket. For all of Zarco's troubles, his long run pace was not too dissimilar to his stablemate's.
It appears KTM will need to find something to get on terms with Aprilia, though. Aleix Espargaro did complete a full race run on the final day, and consistently lapped in the low 1:56s bracket, making brief appearances in the high 1:55s for good measure.
He wasn't totally happy, though. He later admitted he expected to be quicker in certain areas, and encountered some “problems”. With nothing new to test in Qatar, Espargaro focused on feeling “safer” on the bike under braking, as he felt he was stressing the front tyre too much.
With a race simulation under his belt, Aprilia does have a good base to launch from next week if it can find the fixes he needs.
