Marquez quickest as Qatar MotoGP weekend kicks off
MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez led the way in the opening practice session of the Qatar Grand Prix, heading Marco Bezzecchi by a tenth of a second.
Marquez led virtually the entire session on the dusty Lusail track, and ended up on a 1m52.278s. He never fitted a spare rear tyre - but neither did virtually anyone else, with no incentive to use up any of the valuable rubber in the less-representative daytime session (compared to Friday afternoon practice, the sprint and the grand prix all taking place in the evening under the lights).
Fabio Di Giannantonio was third behind Marquez and Bezzecchi, four tenths down on the leader.
Pedro Acosta was fourth as the lead KTM, but his RC16 seemed to either fail or run out of fuel in the end as he had to pull over to the side of the track.
Jorge Martin, who had withdrawn from the Sepang weekend last time out due to his wrist fracture from Phillip Island, had a livelier start here, logging 16 laps and placing fifth.
With the Yamaha riders absent as the manufacturer elected to skip Qatar, a total of 18 riders took part. Honda's new stand-in Jake Dixon was last of them, after crashing on his very first flying lap.
But Dixon was just 3.1s off the pace in the end, so will have zero trouble clearing MotoGP's 105-percent pace rule for race eligibility.
There was another crash early in the session, for KTM's Brad Binder, who likewise returned to action shortly.
Session result
1 Marc Marquez (Ducati) 1m52.278s
2 Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) +0.110s
3 Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati) +0.413s
4 Pedro Acosta (KTM) +0.677s
5 Jorge Martin (Aprilia) +0.734s
6 Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) +0.793s
7 Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) +0.911s
8 Luca Marini (Honda) +0.952s
9 Franco Morbidelli (VR46 Ducati) +1.028s
10 Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) +1.084s
11 Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati) +1.263s
12 Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) +1.339s
13 Brad Binder (KTM) +1.353s
14 Iker Lecuona (Gresini Ducati) +1.432s
15 Maverick Vinales (Tech3 KTM) +1.447s
16 Diogo Moreira (LCR Honda) +1.791s
17 Enea Bastianini (Tech3 KTM) +1.965s
18 Jake Dixon (Honda) +3.148s
