Repsol Honda lead opening day of MotoGP 2015
Marc Marquez ended Free Practice 1 on top of the timesheets as riders took to the track for the first time for the MotoGP 2015 season.
Marquez finished with a 1’55.281, only seven-hundredths faster than his Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa (+0.076s).
Marc Marquez P1 – 1’55.281 – “Today went pretty well. It is always important to make a good start to the weekend. I felt good and the feeling was similar to that which we had in pre-season testing, although maybe there was a little less grip. We tried some things that we had prepared after the test and this went well. Tomorrow we will try to keep progressing, but we can’t forget that the track surface here will improve a lot and the times will come down.”
Dani Pedrosa P2 – 1’55.357 – “We have completed the first session of the year and we have done quite well. Now we are going to work on the bike to in preparation for the coming days. We need to keep taking steps forward as the weekend goes on and keep improving our pace. The track was in quite good condition and we’ll see how it evolves over the course of the Grand Prix weekend.”
Aleix Espargaro (+0.404s) managed to end the session in third place, as he took advantage of the softer tyre option which is available to Team Suzuki Ecstar, as part of the concessions given to Factory teams without a race win since 2013.
Aleix Espargaro P3 – “It’s been a positive day. I found a lot of confidence with the hard tyre but I’m very satisfied with my single lap with a soft one, since I’m up with the top riders. We wanted to recover some of the time we lost in the last test here in Qatar so we focused on finalising traction control and electronics. We had very important feedback that gives us many indications for the work we need to do next. Tomorrow I need to try a long run to evaluate the situation in terms of race-pace, but for the moment the work-plan is going smoothly.”
Jorge Lorenzo, who currently holds the Qatar pole position record, showed he‘s in good shape and ready to start the title challenge. Back to his typical routine, he left his box early and was the first rider to complete a lap around the slippery circuit. After warming up his tyres, he was quick to post consistent times under the 1‘56 mark, dropping a 1‘55.698 lap as his fastest time. He ended the first practice in fourth position, just under 0,417s from the front.
Jorge Lorenzo P4 – 1’55.698 – “Everybody has been quite fast on these new tyres, even if the track wasn‘t perfect. Moto2 almost broke a record, I think, but in MotoGP we need a little bit more grip. The track is dusty, so it looks like the bike is a bit flowy everywhere. It‘s difficult to have confidence but I think today our side has done a quite good job from the beginning. When I feel great on the bike, which wasn‘t on the last run, I feel great. To be honest, I hope to be much faster tomorrow. We are still a second from my best lap time from last year. We have a margin, but for a first practice, knowing the track is not perfect, this is not a bad start.”
Cal Crutchlow (+0.537s) was the top satellite rider in 5th place on the CMW LCR Honda, with Pramac Racing’s Danilo Petrucci just a further one-tenth of a second back in 6th, with the Italian also using the softer tyre option on his Ducati GP14.1.
Cal Crutchlow P5 – 1’55.818 – “I take nothing from the first race, let alone the first practice! Tomorrow I believe there will be a big change in the standings, but I was happy with the lap and fifth place is not so bad. We had a couple of issues early on and I was forced to pit, so we lost some time there, and I also had another problem with the brake lever like we had in the test. I also had another issue on my fastest lap with a rider in the last corner, and this comes after a briefing we had an hour before the session saying that we weren’t allowed to wait in that corner. It was idiotic, as he was riding 100 km/h too slowly. Clearly, the games have started already! The CWM LCR Honda team did a great job again though; we’re doing the best with what we have and they are giving me great support to make me competitive. The race could well be a bit different to first free practice, but I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
Petrucci, who had to run back to the pits for his second bike after experiencing issues with his first, managed to finish the session ahead of the factory Ducati’s of Dovizioso in 7th, and Iannone in 10th on the GP15 bike.
Andrea Dovizioso P7 – 1’55.980 – “Conditions today were a bit different to those during the tests and we were not particularly quick. In this session we tried both bikes to compare two different set-ups but we were unable to find the same feeling that we had last week. Now we have to analyze the data to understand which direction to take tomorrow. It didn’t go bad today, but we have to improve the feeling at the front under braking and the other things that did not allow us to repeat our testing performance. As a first session, it was OK but in tomorrow’s two we have to make an important step forward.”
Valentino Rossi left the pit box soon after his teammate to resume the testing schedule he was unable to complete during last week‘s interrupted Qatar testing session. Despite suffering from a lack of grip, he worked on the set-up of his YZR-M1 and gradually moved up the timesheets to a provisional fifth position with a 1‘56.162 lap. He later dropped four places, finishing 0,881s from the leading time as the session came to an end.
Valentino Rossi P9 – 1’56.162 – “It was quite difficult because I wasn‘t fast enough and I‘m just in the ninth position. We tried something different than what we did during the test, but unfortunately it was bad for the rear tyre. I already damaged the rear tyre after five or six laps and the bike moved around a lot. We also weren‘t fast enough during the second part of the practice, but we‘ll take the data and now we have to try to understand how to improve. Unfortunately there was just one practice today, so we have to work on the data and try to modify the setting. We will wait for tomorrow to see if we are able to go faster. I have a problem with the rear tyre, which is very soft. There‘s a lack of grip that we have to fix and I have to improve my pace. I want to try to stay under the 1‘55 tomorrow and finish in the top ten for Saturday‘s qualifying session.”
Andrea Iannone P10 1’56.315 – “I am quite satisfied with the way the first session went even though we were not very quick. We had a bit more difficulty than in the tests, encountering some problems that we didn’t have last week. I think that the track conditions were not the same, so for this reason we will focus on tomorrow’s two sessions: in any case I am positive and serene about everything and now we’ll analyze the data together with my team to better understand what can be changed and decide on the modifications for tomorrow.”
Scott Redding P12 – 1’56.374 – “We had a couple of small issues with the tank cover and the brakes, so it wasn’t the perfect start, but it was better to get these issues out of the way now. We used the hard tyre at the beginning before switching to the soft at the end, which made a big difference to the lap time. We tried a few different things today that we couldn’t try at the test here because of the rain on the final day, so this was a bit of a last test day for us really. I’m happy enough with today, because we still have room for improvement, so tomorrow the work really starts.”
The fastest Open class rider was Stefan Bradl (+1.296s) in 14th on the Athina Forward Racing machine.
Maverick Vinales suffered from some electronics issues and thus could not match the scintillating pace of his teammate and finished the session in 17th place, 3-hundredths of a second quicker than Jack Miler.
Maverick Viñales P18 -1’56.922 – “The day could have been better but unfortunately we had some issues with the electronics on my number-one bike, so I had to switch to bike two. They had different set-ups that we planned to test, but the last one was not so effective so at the end of the day this session has been somewhat wasted. I’m not worried, these are things that happen in racing, we will recover time in tomorrow’s sessions and continue to develop the set-up in order to find a good feeling for the race.”
Jack Miller P19 – 1’56.983 (lap 12 of 16) – “I’m happy with today. It could be better, but I need to minimize my mistakes – I was making too many out there tonight. For now though I’m just happy to get the first MotoGP session of my career out of the way. I felt comfortable on the bike and the lap time wasn’t too bad, so tomorrow I hope I can improve the situation.”
The Aspar Team riders struggled to reproduce the form and feeling that they found just ten days ago during testing. With just one session available to them it was difficult for Nicky Hayden and Eugene Laverty to react to their disappointing start tonight but they have plenty of time over the next two evenings’ action to put things right ahead of Sunday’s race.
Nicky Hayden P21 – 1.57.052 – “We just had one session tonight and it flew past, we didn’t get much chance to work on the bike. We lapped a second slower than the test here and finished 1.7 seconds off the top so that’s not really a positive start to the weekend. We had some changes in mind for the final day of the test here but it rained so we didn’t get chance, so we tried some things today but the results weren’t what we hoped for. The feeling improved when we went back to the original setting but we still didn’t manage to go any faster because we ran out of track time. We will keep working tomorrow to get back to the feeling and the pace we had here in the test.”
Eugene Laverty P23 – 1.57.224 – “We found a really good feeling for the bike here at the recent test and we had a good set-up but from the start of the session tonight I didn’t have the same confidence in the front end. We don’t know why this is but we didn’t have much time to work on it so tomorrow we will change the front tyre and keep working hard to get the feeling back. Tomorrow we will use the information from the test to work with the electronics and the traction control and I am sure I’ll feel more comfortable on the bike.”
The fledgling Aprilia MotoGP development effort continues to work hard with Alvaro Bautista finishing the session in 22nd place, less than two-seconds from pacesetter Marc Marquez.
Romano Albesiano – Aprilia Racing Manager – “For us every session on the track is another step forward, so the first Grand Prix practice sessions are no exception. During the last tests here in Qatar we dropped the engine brake levels very low, values that proved to be too low today. So tomorrow we’ll work on this and, with both Alvaro and Marco’s second bikes, we’ll work on some chassis solutions that are radically different than the base setup. The purpose of this is to explore every possible development direction.”
Alvaro Bautista P22 -1’57.130 – “On this first day of practice we focused our work on a few new engine parts, making a fairly important comparison between the two different solutions. At the moment there is not much difference, but I think that with a few more changes we’ll be able to take a big step forward, so I’m confident in the changes that Aprilia has in store for the future. Obviously in just 45 minutes today there wasn’t a lot of time to try and improve the situation compared to the recent test sessions here at Losail, just like there wasn’t much time to work on the bike on site. In any case, for this weekend our goal is still to achieve the best possible sensations in the saddle. We’ll look at the race as if it’s a long run, like it’s a test where we will be trying to maintain the most consistent pace we can.”
Marco Melandri P25 -1’59.579 – “Basically the bike is the same as the one we used in the recent tests, so we clearly were not expecting any great revolution. We tried a few different setup solutions, but there is still a lot of work to do on both the bike and my feeling with it. Sure, we’ve still got a long way to go, but for us every session is a new test.”
The MotoGP action continues on Friday at 18:00 local time for FP2.
MotoGP 2015 – Round One – Losail – Thursday MotoGP Times
- MARQUEZ Marc 93 SPA Repsol Honda Team 1’55.281
- PEDROSA Dani 26 SPA Repsol Honda Team 1’55.357
- ESPARGARO Aleix 41 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar 1’55.685
- LORENZO Jorge 99 SPA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1’55.698
- CRUTCHLOW Cal 35 GBR CWM LCR Honda 1’55.818
- PETRUCCI Danilo 9 ITA Pramac Racing 1’55.939
- DOVIZIOSO Andrea 4 ITA Ducati Team 1’55.980
- HERNANDEZ Yonny 68 COL Pramac Racing 1’56.139
- ROSSI Valentino 46 ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 1’56.162
- IANNONE Andrea 29 ITA Ducati Team 1’56.315
- ESPARGARO Pol 44 SPA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1’56.361
- REDDING Scott 45 GBR Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS 1’56.374
- SMITH Bradley 38 GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1’56.428
- BRADL Stefan 6 GER Athina Forward Racing 1’56.577
- ABRAHAM Karel 17 CZE AB Motoracing 1’56.651
- DE ANGELIS Alex 15 RSM Athina Forward Racing 1’56.768
- VINALES Maverick 25 SPA Team Suzuki Ecstar 1’56.922
- BARBERA Hector 8 SPA Avintia Racing 1’56.957
- MILLER Jack 43 AUS CWM LCR Honda 1’56.983
- BAZ Loris 76 FRA Athina Forward Racing 1’57.031
- HAYDEN Nicky 69 USA Aspar MotoGP Team 1’57.052
- BAUTISTA Alvaro 19 SPA Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 1’57.130
- LAVERTY Eugene 50 IRE Aspar MotoGP Team 1’57.224
- DI MEGLIO Mike 63 FRA Avintia Racing 1’57.612
- MELANDRI Marco 33 ITA Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 1’59.579
Weather: Dry | Humidity: 71% | Track Temp: 28°C | Air Temp: 23°C
Record Pole Position 1m 53.927s (170.003km/h) Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha, 2008)
Record Race Lap 1m 55.153s (168.193km/h) Casey Stoner (Ducati, 2008)
Moto2
Sam Lowes on the Speed Up Racing bike was once again quickest, as he dominated Free Practice 2 at the Losail International Circuit.
The British rider became the first person ever on a Moto2™ bike to break the 2 minute mark at the circuit during FP1, and he followed that up with a 2’00.025 in FP2. He finished ahead of Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS’s reigning Moto2 World Champion Tito Rabat (+0.343s), with Frenchman Johann Zarco (+0.662s) a further 3 tenths back in 3rd on the Ajo Motorsport Kalex.
Tito Rabat P3 – 2’00.368 – “This was a very interesting test, as the weather meant we didn’t do so many laps with this bike during preseason testing. Today we have seen many different things with the bike where we can make improvements, which is good for us. In the second session it took some time to get going, because there was spots of rain on my visor every lap, but with five minutes to go it cleared up and I was able to start building the pace, eventually putting in a very good lap time. Tomorrow we will try to make another step, focus on our job and try to go even faster.”
Alex Marquez P18 – 2’02.076 – “The team is working well and the bike felt really good today. Sure, we can improve it, but I think the biggest improvements will come from me adapting my riding style to suit better both the bike and the track. Tonight we will look through the data but, more importantly, we’ll look closely at video footage of the two sessions, to identify where we can make the biggest improvements tomorrow. Today we’re two seconds off the pace, but I’m happy because, once again, we improved step-by-step and this is how we need to continue tomorrow.”
This meant that Lowes ended the day on top of the combined timesheets, with his best time from FP1 (1’59.717) almost four-tenths quicker than Maverick Viñales circuit record from last season.
There were some spots of rain during the session at various points on the track, although it did not seem to affect the riders too much.
The Moto2 paddock returns on Friday for the final practice session at 19:55 local time.
MotoGP 2015 – Round One – Losail – Thursday Moto2 Combined Times
- Lowes 1m59.71
- Zarco 2m00.33
- Rabat 2m00.36
- Pons 2m01.04
- Nakagami 2m01.123
- Luthi 2m01.124
- Cortese 2m01.175
- Simeon 2m01.175
- Rins 2m01.397
- Folger 2m01.41
- Corsi 2m01.44
- Morbidelli 2m01.49
- Salom 2m01.505
- Rossi 2m01.52
- West 2m01.65
- Simon 2m01.68
- Schrotter 2m01.723
- Marquez 2m02.076
- Kallio 2m02.127
- Krummenacher 2m02.16
- Syahrin 2m02.309
- Cardus 2m02.454
- Shah 2m02.59
- Baldassarri 2m02.758
- Aegerter 2m03.052
- Zaidi 2m03.644
- Warokorn 2m03.75
- Alt 2m03.93
- Raffin 2m04.80
- Mulhauser 2m05.40
Moto3
Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira finished FP2 on top of the timesheets for his Red Bull KTM Ajo Team at the Losail International Circuit.
Oliveira ended the session with a 2’06.580, 0.179s faster than Niccolo Antonelli on the Ongetta-Rivacold Honda. Isaac Viñales (+0.620s) was a further four-tenths back in 3rd place, with most riders improving their times from FP1.
That meant Oliveira ended the day quickest overall, with British rider Danny Kent second on the combined timesheets as he was one of the only riders to set his fastest time in FP1.
The Moto3 teams and riders return on Friday for FP3 at 19:00 local time.
MotoGP 2015 – Round One – Losail – Thursday Moto3 Combined Times
- Oliveira 2m06.58
- Kent 2m06.60
- Antonelli 2m06.75
- Vinales 2m07.20
- Fenati 2m07.377
- Bagnaia 2m07.41
- Quartararo 2m07.42
- Loi 2m07.50
- Vazquez 2m07.66
- Navarro 2m07.67
- Binder 2m07.74
- Oettl 2m07.76
- Masbou 2m07.80
- Ono 2m07.81
- Ajo 2m07.83
- Martin 2m08.09
- Hanika 2m08.11
- Kornfeil 2m08.21
- Tonucci 2m08.35
- Guevera 2m08.44
- Locatelli 2m08.48
- McPhee 2m08.53
- Khairuddin 2m08.53
- Bastianini 2m08.58
- Danilo 2m08.61
- Rodrigo 2m09.05
- Gardner 2m09.53
- Ferrari 2m09.79
- Bezzecchi 2m09.99
- Migno 2m10.32
- Suzuki 2m10.37
- Binder 2m10.77
- Herrera 2m10.86
