MILLER LEADS DUCATI TRIO AT THE TOP
Aussie Jack Miller led the Ducati dominance at the timesheets after the opening day of practice for the second round of MotoGP in Doha.
Miller set the pace by recording a 1m 53.145s, 0.313s ahead of teammate Francesco Bagnaia, while the satellite Pramac example of Johann Zarco completed a dominant day for the Italian marque in third.
Bagnaia topped the timesheets early, lowering the mark set by Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro in opening practice, a 1m 54.779s by 0.705s. Pramac’s Jorge Martin was the lead Ducati in practice 1, but was unable to better Bagnaia’s benchmark to sit second, before focus was turned to race set-up where teams were transferred to the soft-soft combination, which was used in last weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix.
LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami ended the Ducati 1-2 briefly with 20-minutes remaining to be second, before riders began to set their sights on achieving a top 10 time, which guarantees automatic qualification into Q2.
Martin, then Suzuki’s Alex Rins sat at the top as he clocked the first sub-1m 53s time.
In the final, frantic few minutes, Espargaro went 0.3s faster than anyone else on a 1m 53.646s, while Franco Morbidelli on the Petronas Yamaha was second after mechanical gremlins had halted his attack in practice 1.
Miller was on a flyer, but had to pull out of it with five-minutes remaining, but when he returned to the track, he was 0.4s up halfway through and further extended this to 0.501s to finish at the top.
Nakagami came to grief at Turn 7 with a minute go, but this didn’t stop Bagnaia, Zarco and Martin cementing spots in the top 10.
A crash for LCR Honda’s Alex Marquez left him out of the top 10, while Yamaha pair Joan Mir and Valentino Rossi also missed out.
Miller leads Bagnaia, Zarco, Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, Martin, Espargaro, Morbidelli, Maverick Vinales and Marc Marquez’s Honda replacement Stefan Bradl.
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