The first Grand Prix of the year did not promise to be easy for the Reds, with the new GP17 to be developed and the arrival of Jorge Lorenzo. But Andrea Dovizioso had finished on the podium for the last two years in a Desmosedici at Doha, and Lorenzo is the driver who holds the record for most wins at Losail, so there was no need to worry about the near Bologna.
The beginnings were modest, but not catastrophic, with the fifth fastest time in the first session for Jorge Lorenzo, a hundredth ahead of the second Ducati led by a Loris Baz great days. Dovi was in eleventh position, behind the Aprilia ofAlex Espargaro.
In the second session, Dovizioso climbed to fourth place in the combined ranking of the first two sessions, behind Maverick Vinales and Marc Marquez, which was not illogical, but also behind Scott Redding and his GP16, which was. Lorenzo's situation was not worrying at the time, but his tenth place, two hundredths ahead of Loris Baz, was not triumphant.
The third session was not so brilliant for the two Ducati officials, with Dovizioso fifth behind the debutant Johann zarco, and Lorenzo in distress in twelfth place, not even qualified for Q2. The rain on Saturday spared Jorge the indignity of having to go through Q1, but he will only be able to start from the fourth row where he will find Valentino Rossi.
To Andrea Dovizioso, « Unfortunately, the conditions we encountered on Saturday did not allow us to test the wet track, nor to do the work we had planned in dry weather.
“In any case, it was the right decision to cancel the tests because this Saturday we did not have the necessary conditions to run safely with the slicks. At this point we will use the time available on Sunday during warm-up to choose the tire to use in the race and try to be as ready as possible. »
According to Jorge Lorenzo, who are " It was really unfortunate not to be able to race on Saturday, because I wanted to continue working on the settings and improve my feeling with the bike. With the conditions at the time, however, it was really impossible to drive on the track.
“Now we can only make the most of the half hour of warm up on Sunday afternoon to move forward and be as ready as possible for my first race with Ducati. Hopefully the weather will be nicer than Saturday and we can have a race in normal conditions in the dry. »
