Qatar MotoGP Test II, Losail – Wednesday lap times (FINAL)

Jack Miller has topped the Official MotoGP testing timesheets for the first time as a Ducati Team rider, the Australian edging out Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo to head Wednesday’s start to the second and final Qatar pre-season test.

Monster Yamaha rider Quartararo had broken half-a-second clear of the field, beating the official Losail pole record by Marc Marquez in the process. 

But Miller, who had been on top as the final hour began, retaliated to put the GP21 ahead of the Frenchman by just 0.080s in the final 15 minutes. The #43 has been spending a lot of time with the new Ducati fairing, which he confirmed is working well.

Quartararo’s team-mate Maverick Vinales, one of the few riders to do longer runs today, took third place ahead of Pramac Ducati’s Johann Zarco, who set a new unofficial Losail top speed record of 352.9 km/h.

Repsol Honda’s Pol Espargaro also featured at the head of the timesheets on his way to fifth place, just ahead of brother Aleix, who was again a frontrunner on the Aprilia. Suzuki team-mates Joan Mir and Alex Rins followed, with Miller’s team-mate Francesco Bagnaia and LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami completing the top ten.

After the March 5 Shakedown (led by Stefan Bradl) and then opening Official Test from March 6-7 (led by Quartararo), riders and teams had just two days to analyse their data before the final three-day test.

The MotoGP regulars are again joined by Factory test riders Bradl (Honda) – also substituting for the injured Marc Marquez – new Yamaha signing Cal Crutchlow, Dani Pedrosa (KTM), Sylvain Guintoli (Suzuki) and Michele Pirro (Ducati).

Crutchlow has been sharing M1s with Yamaha’s Japanese test riders Katsuyuki Nakasuga and Kohta Nozane. The three bikes, which appear to include 2019 (A-Spec) plus 2020 and 2021 Factory-spec machines, are labelled ‘#T1’, ‘#T2’ and ‘#T3’. Official timing only lists the bike, not the rider, although one of Crutchlow’s (Factory-spec) bikes is in a special 60th anniversary Yamaha livery for the final test.

Testing takes place from 2pm to 9pm each day, followed by ten minutes reserved for practice starts.

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* Rookie

Key:
^X Rider is X positions higher than previous hour.
= Rider is same position as previous hour.
˅X Rider is X positions lower than previous hour.

Fastest Qatar Test 1 Time:
Fabio Quartararo FRA Yamaha 1m 53.940s

Official Qatar MotoGP records:
Best lap:
Marc Marquez SPA Honda 1m 53.380s (2019)
Fastest race lap:
Jorge Lorenzo SPA Yamaha 1m 54.927s (2016)

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