Marquez leads second shortened practice at wet Losail | Top Vip News

Rain hit the track around 7:00 p.m. local time in Losail, an hour before the scheduled start of the session and while the final Moto3 free practice session of the day was taking place.

Although the rain lasted for a short period, it left the circuit too wet to allow any MotoGP to run on slick tyres, leading race control to reduce the length of the session and not count it towards the qualifying groups.

Even though the conditions were not suitable, the majority of the field left the pitlane when practice officially began as scheduled at 8:10 a.m. local time.

Augusto Fernández set the initial pace with a time of 2m08.974s on his GasGas Tech3 KTM, before making a series of improvements to position himself well in the 2m07s category.

His new teammate and reigning Moto2 champion Pedro Acosta briefly reached the top of the times with a time of 2m07.441s, before Jack Miller became the next fastest KTM rider, moving down the point. reference at 2m07.663s.

That was until Fernández took the lead again, becoming the first driver to break the 2m07s barrier with a time of 2m06.938s in his GasGas RC16. Acosta also managed to make a small improvement on his next flight, reestablishing a Tech3 1-2 at the front of the field.

But with 20 minutes left in the session, Gresini’s new signing Marc Márquez managed to find more speed on his one-year-old Ducati, posting a time of 2m06.544s on a still-wet Losail circuit.

His lap remained unbeaten until the end of the 45-minute session, meaning he finished his first official day as a Ducati rider at the top of the timesheets.

Fernandez’s previous lap was good enough to place him second, 0.290s down on Marquez, while Acosta once again finished third in what was a promising first day for the Spaniard in both dry and wet conditions.

Miller and his factory KTM teammate Brad Binder placed four bikes from the Austrian manufacturers in the top five, with the latter finishing 0.801 seconds off the pace in what was a largely unrepresentative session.

Trackhouse Racing’s Raúl Fernández was fast throughout second practice and finished a solid sixth on the best of the Aprilia bikes, beating the best Ducati of Enea Bastianini by just under half a tenth.

The VR46’s new signing, Fabio di Giannanantonio, was eighth at the end of the session, although half a second behind Bastianini, and Alex Márquez followed him on the Gresini Ducati.

LCR’s Johann Zarco ensured Honda finished in the top 10 with a best time of 2m08.321s, despite not setting a timed lap in the first 15 minutes of the session.

He beat Joan Mir’s factory Honda bike by just 0.006s, and Mir, in turn, marginally edged last year’s champion Francesco Bagnaia’s factory Ducati GP24.

It was a low-key session for Yamaha, with Fabio Quartararo finishing 14th and teammate Alex Rins propping up the timesheets in 22nd place.

The factory Aprilia team didn’t look fast in the wet conditions either, with Maverick Viñales finishing a distant 15th and Aleix Espargaró languishing in 19th. Like Zarco, both opted not to put in early laps on a wet Losail circuit.

The second free practice session on Friday will not count towards qualification for the first round of the 2024 MotoGP season. Instead, the results of Saturday’s final practice sessions will be used to determine who gets an automatic entry into Q2 and who will have to go through the first part of qualifying.

FP2, as it is officially called, will have an extended duration of 45 minutes.