Moto3: Martin dominates Friday practice

Pre-season favourite Jorge Martin finished Friday streets ahead of his rivals as he took charge of practice for Moto3 in Qatar.

Lisa Lewis

16 Mar 2018

Jorge Martin set the standard, topping the timesheets overall with his FP2 time by over a half a second gap to his nearest rivals as Moto3 enjoyed it’s first track action of the year in Qatar.

The Del Conca Gresini rider looked at ease on a track that was cleaner and cooler compared to the morning session, leading to faster times all round in the overcast conditions ahead of their daylight race.

The Spaniard, fresh from his maiden win in the championship at the final round of 2017 in Valencia, had lead the way for most of the session before pulling out a lap record of 2m 06.087s , timed to perfection - just before the chequered flag - with no-one able to post a reply.

Nico Antonelli (SIC58 Squadra Corse)cut the gap to Martin, which had stood at over a second, down to 0.662s with fellow Italian Enea Bastianini completing an all-Honda top three for Leopard Racing.

Gabriel Rodrigo was the best performing KTM rider in fourth overall for the RBA BOE Skull Rider team.

Martin’s Team-mate Fabio Di Giannantonio secured a to five slot and a solid start for Gresini.

Andrea Migno made improvements to rise to sixth overall for the Angel Nieto Team, ahead of Marinelli Snipers Toni Arbolino in seventh.

Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Leopard), Aron Canet(Estrella Galicia 0,0), who took a while to get up to speed and Philipp Oettl (Sudmetal Schedl GP Racing) complete the top ten on Friday.

John McPhee started the day on a positive not saying he was ‘fighting for race wins’ and was fourth after FP1, but slid away a little as the lap times crashed, and was 15th overall at the close for CIP- Green Power.

Alonso Lopez is the youngest rider in Moto3 this year - but was the best of the rookies in 21st on his debut at just sixteen with Estrella Galicia.

The dubious honour of first fall of the season went to Ayumu Sasaki in FP1, though he was not the only rider to take a tumble in the session - fellow Japanese rider Tatsuki Suzuki was far more unfortunate, he suffered a hairline fracture on his right arm and misses the rest of the weekend’s action.