Viñales and Rabat the best of the Moto3 and Moto2 warm-up in Qatar

Rider Maverick Viñales and rider Tito Rabat dominated the Moto3 and Moto2 warm-up at the Losail Circuit. Viñales set a time of 2:07.704, which leaves the young rider in a good mood ahead of tomorrow, when he will start from second place, after watching Sandro Cortese deliver the final blow in the last moments of the category’s official session.

Behind Viñales came Romano Fenati in 2nd, Luis Salom 3rd, Sandro Cortese 4th, Louis Rossi 5th, Miguel Oliveira 6th, Alexis Masbou 7th, Niklas Ajo 8th, Danny Kent 9th and Alberto Moncayo 10th. This is an interesting preparation for the race: after these final 20 minutes of practice, the Moto3 category heads out to race, and the real action arrives in Qatar. The rest of the Spanish riders placed 13th Alex Rins, 14th Héctor Faubel, 18th Adrián Martín, 19th Efrén Vázquez, 20th Iván Moreno and 27th Isaac Viñales.

The Moto2 category went to Tito Rabat, of Pons Racing, who was the fastest in the intermediate-class warm-up with a time of 2:00.525, leaving his teammate Pol Espargaró in second place. Sito Pons’ team is clearly very strong in these sessions at the Losail Circuit. Marc Márquez, meanwhile, seems to have had problems in this warm-up, although he was able to return to the track and finish 12th. Completing the top 10 were Thomas Luthi 3rd, the pole sitter; Andrea Iannone 4th, Takaaki Nakagami 5th, Mike Di Meglio 6th, Bradley Smith 7th, Julián Simón 8th, Claudio Corti 9th and Simone Corsi 10th.

The rest of the Spanish riders placed 12th Marc Márquez, 15th Toni Elías, 20th Nico Terol, 21st Axel Pons, 23rd Ricky Cardús, 24th Ángel Rodríguez and 31st Elena Rosell.

Tomorrow the MotoGP warm-up takes place in Qatar, and then comes the moment of truth: the three races, the start of the 2012 Motorcycle World Championship at the Losail track.

Photo | MotoGP Official website