Aleix Espargaró dominates day 1 of MotoGP testing in Qatar

The MotoGP World Championship continues its 2014 pre-season testing, this time at the Qatar Circuit with the satellite and Open bikes. The Factory Yamaha of Honda; and the one that will initially be named Factory 2 Ducati are not present.

The first day at the Losail track has been very interesting, as Aleix Espargaró continues to surprise the riders of his Open Yamaha of Forward Racing. The 41 still dominates the category, but he has also placed himself ahead of the satellite bikes, so the performance of this MotoGP machine is very, very, very interesting, setting a lap time of 1:55.386.

Behind him, Bradley Smith placed himself on the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha, finishing 0.253s behind the leader, while the next position went to Pol Espargaró on the other Monster Tech 3 Yamaha, finishing 0.686s behind his older brother. In short, both the satellite Yamahas and the Open bikes dominated this first day in Qatar.

Bautista was 4th on this first day, standing 0.695s behind the leader. Closing the top 5 was Stefan Bradl, the German set the same lap time as his teammate Bautista; the two recorded identical times.

The top 10 was: Iannone 6th, Edwards 7th, Hernández 8th, Hayden 9th and Redding 10th. Barberá 12th. We also saw the debut of Petrucci with IodaRacing, so there is news from this pre-season test at the Qatar track, where the MotoGP season kicks off on March 23.

More tomorrow.

Photo | MotoGP Official website