Fabio Quartararo returned to the head of the timesheets by the end of the second day of running at Qatar for the final pre-season MotoGP test.
The Frenchman posted the fastest time of the weekend so far on one of his qualifying simulations, a 1:54.038, to go just over four-tenths quicker than Alex Rins’ best effort from yesterday’s opening running.
While unable to match his leading position from Saturday, the Suzuki man was still a strong second- narrowly heading the fastest factory Yamaha of Maverick Vinales- while Franco Morbidelli’s Petronas SRT M1 followed in fourth.
Francesco Bagnaia was the quickest man for Ducati in fifth for Pramac, while Johann Zarco managed an encouraging sixth on the leaderboard on his Avintia Racing-prepared Desmosedici GP19.
Joan Mir closed out Sunday’s session with the seventh fastest time on the second of the Suzuki GSX-RR’s despite a late spill, the sophomore racer just clear of Andrea Dovizioso on the leading factory Ducati.
Valentino Rossi and Takaaki Nakagami-who ended the session as fastest Honda- completed today’s top ten, Nakagami continuing to recover from his shoulder injury that forced him to miss the final three races of 2019.
It was a difficult day for the official Honda team, with Marc Marquez suffering a heavy crash earlier in the day-the bike ending up in two pieces-on his way to 14th overall, while team-mate Alex Marquez again struggled for speed down in 19th.
Pol Espargaro looked set to give KTM a strong top ten placing during the afternoon, but was ultimately shuffled back to 13th-although still the fastest RC16-behind brother and factory Aprilia man Aleix Espargaro and Danilo Petrucci’s Ducati.
Cal Crutchlow continued to occupy the lower reaches of the standings, the LCR Honda pilot heading only Aprilia test rider Bradley Smith by the conclusion of Sunday running.
