Morbidelli beats Espargaro to head opening Qatar MotoGP practice

Franco Morbidelli became the first man to lead a MotoGP race weekend session in 2021 with the quickest tour in FP1 for the Qatar Grand Prix, leading Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro.

The Italian led the way early on in the 45 minute test following the early flurry of fast times as the ’21 MotoGP campaign got underway at the Losail International Circuit, posting a 1:55.266s effort to head the factory Yamaha and Ducati machines of Maverick Vinales and Francesco Bagnaia respectively.

He then managed to shave a further 0.174 from his benchmark just past the mid-point of the session, though he came under pressure from Espargaro’s Aprilia in the closing minutes.

Espargaro fired in a time just 0.015 away from Morbidelli on his penultimate flyer before shooting to the peak of the timing pylon by a slender 0.046, the Italian manufacturer building on the promise it showed during testing at the same Losail venue just two weeks ago.

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Morbidelli wasn’t keen to lose out to the RS-GP however and fired in a final gambit of 1:54.921s to end the session fastest, Espargaro forced to make do with second ahead of Jack Miller’s Ducati.

The Aussie didn’t have a completely straightforward first official practice outing of the year after tucking the front of his Desmosedici at Turn 4 around half-way through, though he walked away unharmed and rejoined the fray later on.

His spill was very similar to one suffered by Pramac Ducati racer Johann Zarco at the same bend just a few minutes into the test, the Frenchman capturing the unfortunate title of being the first man to crash in a race weekend in ’21.

Fabio Quartararo ended FP1 fourth overall on the first of the factory Yamaha’s, while reigning MotoGP world champion Joan Mir completed the top five for Suzuki.

Vinales slipped to sixth by the time the flag fell on the session ahead of Alex Rins on the second Suzuki GSX-RR, with Bagnaia eighth quickest.

Valentino Rossi ended up ninth at the conclusion of his first practice session with his new Petronas SRT outfit, with KTM’s Miguel Oliveira rounding out the top ten.

Alex Marquez led Honda’s charge just ahead of LCR team-mate Takaaki Nakagami in 11^th and 12^th respectively, with factory RC213-V pilots Stefan Bradl and Pol Espargaro only 14^th and 15^th after a crash for the latter.

Espargaro ran wide on approach to Turn 6 towards the final part of the session, the ex-KTM racer trying in vain to get his steed stopped before heading into the dirty off-line section and tucking the front.

Luca Marini ended up as the fastest rookie on his Avintia-run Ducati, just pipping team-mate Enea Bastianini who suffered a crash of his own after dropping the Desmosedici at Turn 1 as the clocked ticked down to zero.