Qatar test

What up guys. Thought I'd open a thread about the tests taking place in Qatar, so we can comment the lap times, share our thoughts on the shape of the different riders/bikes and more in general, have something to talk about while waiting for the real deal to be on in a couple weeks.

As you may know, today was the first day of testing. Below are the lap times, I will later try to write a more detailed report on who tested what and some interesting facts, if I hear some I'll be happy to hear your thoughts!


1. Maverick Viñales, Yamaha, 1:55,053 min
2. Andrea Dovizioso, Ducati, +0,051 sec
3. Andrea Iannone, Suzuki, +0,054
4. Johann Zarco, Yamaha, +0,133
5. Jorge Lorenzo, Ducati, 0,370
6. Alex Rins, Suzuki, +0,379
7. Valentino Rossi, Yamaha, +0,379
8. Danilo Petrucci, Ducati, +0,475
9. Cal Crutchlow, Honda, +0,483
10. Marc Márquez, Honda, +0,492
11. Dani Pedrosa, Honda, +0,502
12. Jack Miller, Ducati, +0,635
13. Álvaro Bautista, Ducati, +0,795
14. Takaaki Nakagami, Honda, +0,800
15. Scott Redding, Aprilia, +0,878
16. Tito Rabat, Ducati, +0,976
17. Aleix Espargaró, Aprilia, +1,009
18. Karel Abraham, Ducati, +1,215
19. Pol Espargaró, KTM, +1,222
20. Bradley Smith, KTM, +1,368
21. Franco Morbidelli, Honda, +1,555
22. Hafizh Syahrin, Yamaha, +1,678
23. Tom Lüthi, Honda, +2,239
24. Xavier Siméon, Ducati, +2,660

Here are my thoughts on the "main" guys, I'm kinda in a hurry so I have to be quick:

Not surprised by Vinales, he's always been blazing fast on this track. Yamaha is the real question mark.

Dovi seems in great shape, way more confident than last year but still quiet as usual. I got a good feeling about this (bare with me, I may be his biggest fan on this whole planet ).

I think Lorenzo will aslo be a win contender with the two guys I mentioned above. This track is really Ducati-oriented and he seems to have more confidence than he did in Buriram.

Marquez was hiding. They got the bike suited around him, he probably just tried out some new things and didn't go for the time attack.

Iannone showed raw speed but I doubt he'll be a podium contender. I'd be happy to be proven wrong tho. I don't like guy much but I love Suzuki

I genuinely do not know how to read Rossi's times. He might be trying to settle his bike 100% before trying some faster laps/race simulations in the next days, he wasn't too slow, but still rather far from his teammate.

My Jorge's looking good so im happy

Were the top times set on soft tyres?

.

This should be an interesting year in motogp. A continuation of where we left off.

Dovi and Marc are both consistently fast and everyone else is all over the place.

Suzuki is back in the game.

Yamaha is probably .......

Lorenzo is probably .......

Zarco will be interesting but slower as the year goes on.

Marc seems seriously ready to rock.

Dovi better have no 7th place finishes. He can't afford that.

But he seems very contenderish.

That is all.

Re: Marquez, from D Emmett: (I fixed his typos)

Friday at Qatar brought another big save. Pramac Ducati's Jack Miller happened to be following Márquez at the time, and had a front-row seat. "I let him past at Turn 6, and I think it happened to be one of his biggest ones yet, it went for so long, all the way to the white line on the outside," Miller said, clearly in awe. "I thought 'he's down, he's down, he's down, he's down' and then he stood it up and kept going again!"

Márquez laughed it off, as is his wont. "It's true, today I was struggling a lot with the front tire," he said. He corroborated Miller's impression of it being a major save. "I checked on the data, I was 66° of lean angle, so even more than Valencia, but I was able to recover that crash. Of course, when you have that problem, it's not the good way, but in the end, that's my riding style."

The thing is, that save was not an isolated incident. Miller: "Following Marc as well, I watched him lose the front I think six times in the space of two laps. I followed him the lap before he crashed, through the fast three corners, and he lost the front each time. It was amazing to watch from behind, there was smoke and stuff coming off him. It looked like he was really struggling, like. I was having these moments, but I wasn't pushing too much, and he was pushing into it. I mean, even his crash at Turn 2 wasn't like your normal crash at Turn 2, it was quite late into the corner."

" ...Like he was pushing, don't get me wrong, but especially in the fast three corners, he lost the front at the first one, ran a bit wide, and so he went even hotter into the second one. It just seemed like he was a sucker for punishment a bit. He just kept going at it."

MadMax said:

he lost the front at the first one, ran a bit wide, and so he went even hotter into the second one.

Click to expand...

Hahaha, what an animal. With an approach like this to finding the limits of his current setup is it really any wonder that MM has acquired the ability to recover from what most couldn't? It's no surprise that people want to see what he is capable of on less competitive machinery.

MadMax said:

Re: Marquez, from D Emmett: (I fixed his typos)

Friday at Qatar brought another big save. Pramac Ducati's Jack Miller happened to be following Márquez at the time, and had a front-row seat. "I let him past at Turn 6, and I think it happened to be one of his biggest ones yet, it went for so long, all the way to the white line on the outside," Miller said, clearly in awe. "I thought 'he's down, he's down, he's down, he's down' and then he stood it up and kept going again!"

Márquez laughed it off, as is his wont. "It's true, today I was struggling a lot with the front tire," he said. He corroborated Miller's impression of it being a major save. "I checked on the data, I was 66° of lean angle, so even more than Valencia, but I was able to recover that crash. Of course, when you have that problem, it's not the good way, but in the end, that's my riding style."

The thing is, that save was not an isolated incident. Miller: "Following Marc as well, I watched him lose the front I think six times in the space of two laps. I followed him the lap before he crashed, through the fast three corners, and he lost the front each time. It was amazing to watch from behind, there was smoke and stuff coming off him. It looked like he was really struggling, like. I was having these moments, but I wasn't pushing too much, and he was pushing into it. I mean, even his crash at Turn 2 wasn't like your normal crash at Turn 2, it was quite late into the corner."

" ...Like he was pushing, don't get me wrong, but especially in the fast three corners, he lost the front at the first one, ran a bit wide, and so he went even hotter into the second one. It just seemed like he was a sucker for punishment a bit. He just kept going at it."

Click to expand...

Marc rides purely off guts, balls, instinct, and cat like agility.

Dovi is confident after preseason testing. In his own words he is a Contender.


Ominous words from Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) in the midst of another overtly positive interview during the 2018 preseason, after having come so close as more of a dark horse contender in 2017. With pace at all venues and good things to say about the majority of what he’s tested from the Borgo Panigale factory heading into 2018, the number 04 is looking to pick up where he left off – and go one better.

So what’s the effect of being a contender, and knowing you are? “It makes me happier, and I feel good,” he smiles. “We’ve worked well in tests until now, normally it’s difficult to test everything you need to, but we’ve done everything perfectly. I’m happy with everything Ducati have brought over winter.”

‘DesmoDovi’ has also been, often, one of the first to pack up on days of testing – having finished the program ahead of schedule. It’s not quite perfect in every aspect, as nothing ever is – but the positivity keeps flowing.

“There are still a few areas where I’m not completely happy but on this track our bike works really well. Our speed is really good and we did the best lap on our long run – well, we did 12 laps, so not a very long run. But I was very happy, I was able to keep good pace. In the past our bike worked well on this track and now it looks even better.”

Even better would be ‘DesmoDovi’ going one better than the P2 he’s taken at the venue before. So could he start the season with a win? That positivity doesn’t fade when running through any of the day’s work.

“I’m happy with what we did; we compared the new chassis and there are positives and negatives – we did the long run on the new chassis and it’s not clear what we’ll use yet but there’s a lot of time left for everyone to work still!”

Final sign off? You guessed it: “I’m very happy.”

Final test times.

Three yamahas in the top 5. Zarco, Rossi, Dovi, Crutchlow, Vinales.

Herve just basically confirmed that he will be getting KTMs next year.
Same spec bikes as the factory.

Good for them!

I also saw in a pitbox interview, Valentino says he is going to be competing the next two seasons. Waste of a factory seat i think.

QUOTE=synn;443930]Herve just basically confirmed that he will be getting KTMs next year.
Same spec bikes as the factory.

Good for them![/QUOTE]



Where is the departing satellite Yamaha team going, after the shock announcement last week that they were splitting with Yamaha? Tech 3 team boss Herve Poncharal didn’t actually mention the initials KTM, in a telephone interview with Dorna – but he effectively confirmed that the rumours were true.

Having earlier spoken about having received an offer that was too good to refuse, he now said that the factory he was joining “had entries in Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP”, offering a career ladder to riders. Only KTM fills that brief.

He added that he had a three-year deal with the promise of full factory-level bikes for two riders, rather than the second-hand second-string equipment he has had with Yamaha.

His decision to end a 20-year association with Yamaha, 18 as the satellite MotoGP team, had several dimensions, including the desire for a fresh challenge. But the presence of potential superstar Zarco was also a major spur.

After Zarco had been on the podium at the last two races, and close to winning in Valencia, “everyone expected something special would be coming for him from Yamaha, and it didn’t come.”

While his 2016 chassis was good enough for top time today, “I always said that something was wrong if Zarco did not have a full factory bike in 2019, and it wasn’t going to happen with Yamaha.” He did not have a deal in place to keep Zarco after the end of this season, but he was in a position at least to tempt him to stay.

While “the bikes” (ie: KTM) were not yet fully competitive, the important thing was that his team would be directly involved with development, and they would get evolution parts during the season.

Barbedwirebikerr said:

I also saw in a pitbox interview, Valentino says he is going to be competing the next two seasons. Waste of a factory seat i think.

Click to expand...

Rossi’s race pace was way better than Vinales’ and Zarco’s.
On what is clearly the third best, even fourth best bike on the grid, that’s more down to the man than the machine.

synn said:

Rossi’s race pace was way better than Vinales’ and Zarco’s.
On what is clearly the third best, even fourth best bike on the grid, that’s more down to the man than the machine.

Click to expand...

Good for us. let the 2015 season heat reborn

synn said:

Rossi’s race pace was way better than Vinales’ and Zarco’s.
On what is clearly the third best, even fourth best bike on the grid, that’s more down to the man than the machine.

Click to expand...

Rossi said managing the second half of the race is going to be the real challenge since they have the same issue with tire wear that has been plaguing them the past couple of seasons.

The man is still beholden to the machine, so keep dreaming.

Losail is going to be Ducati versus Marc Marquez. Looking at Marquez's pace it was quite good before he pulled off in what looked like a sandbagging effort to hide what his real pace is. He's already found the limits with the front tire, something no one else can do.

JPSLotus said:

Rossi said managing the second half of the race is going to be the real challenge since they have the same issue with tire wear that has been plaguing them the past couple of seasons.

The man is still beholden to the machine, so keep dreaming.

Losail is going to be DOVI versus Marc Marquez. Looking at Marquez's pace it was quite good before he pulled off in what looked like a sandbagging effort to hide what his real pace is. He's already found the limits with the front tire, something no one else can do.

Click to expand...

Fix it for you...the other Ducati factory rider will be too busy complaining about the bike and trying to convince Suzuki and KTM he is worth millions to hire.....

If that other rider cant find a top flight ride for 2019....Ducati should tell him he has to do a 2017 Melandri deal to stay on the factory team for 2019

MigsAngel said:

Fix it for you...the other Ducati factory rider will be too busy complaining about the bike and trying to convince Suzuki and KTM he is worth millions to hire.....

If that other rider cant find a top flight ride for 2019....Ducati should tell him he has to do a 2017 Melandri deal to stay on the factory team for 2019

Click to expand...

Ducati pushed Melandri to go into therapy to make him competitive. Yamaha should have made Lorenzo see a shrink when he exhibited delusions of succeeding on a Ducati.

I wouldn’t be too unhappy if Ducati and Suzuki did a one to one swap for J Lo and Iannone.

The Maniac would be back on a Ducati, which is incredibly exciting to watch and J Lo gets his pseudo M1. Everybody wins.