PHOTOS COURTESY OF DUCATI
For those wondering how the new Ducatis would fare at Qatar, the answer—fairly well. Both Ducati factory riders topped the timesheets on the first day of the final MotoGP pre-season test at Qatar, with Andrea Iannone taking top honors ahead of teammate Andrea Dovizioso by .098 of a second.
It’s still early yet, but if day one was any indicator, Ducati’s new Desmosedici GP15 will be the weapon of choice for both Andreas at the season opener in a few weeks time in Qatar.
Iannone, as expected, was very happy with his result and the progress being made with the new machine.
“For sure it was a positive first day, and we are learning more and more about the Desmosedici GP15 and its reactions,” said Iannone via a release. “Today we carried out the schedule we had planned at the start of the day and we managed to get through everything we had to do. Now our engineers will have even more information to evaluate the situation, and in any case we were always quick. I am happy because we are improving every time we go out onto the track.”
Dovizioso was also pleased.
“I am very satisfied with this first day here in Qatar, because we immediately got off to a fast start and this is always important,” Dovizioso said. “For sure we still have a lot of work to do because there are a few aspects of the GP15 that we have to improve before we arrive at the race, but I am happy with the base settings we have established here. Tomorrow we’ll do some important tests to better understand our new bike, but as I said before today was a very positive start.”
Just shy of the two Ducatis—by .289 of a second—was Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez. Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Aleix Espargaro put on an impressive first-day performance in fourth ahead of Marquez’ teammate Dani Pedrosa.
It was a rough day for the Movistar Yamaha squad as sixth-place finisher Jorge Lorenzo struggled with lack of grip on the slippery circuit. On the other side of the garage, Valentino Rossi suffered a crash early on. The Italian rider was unhurt, but lost one of the three sets of tires allocated for today’s session and ended the day eighth.
CWM LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow ended the seventh. And rounding out the top 10 was fellow Brits—Bradley Smith on the Monster Energy Yamaha Tech 3 machine and Scott Redding on the Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda.
American Nicky Hayden was 17th on the Drive M7 Aspar Open Spec Honda, 1.834 seconds off of leader Iannone.
2015 MotoGP Qatar Test
Day One Results
1. Andrea Iannone (Ducati) 1:55.265
2. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) 1:55.363
3. Marc Marquez (Honda) 1:55.554
4. Aleix Espargaro (Suzuki) 1:55.698
5. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 1:55.813
6. Jorge Lorezo (Yamaha) 1:55.828
7. Cal Crutchlow (Honda) 1:55.837
8. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 1:55.938
9. Bradley Smith (Yamaha) 1:55.954
10. Scott Redding (Honda) 1:56.112
