Brad Binder surprises with fastest time at Qatar premiere

March 4, 2022

Losail.- Although the track conditions will have nothing to do with this afternoon, when the temperature starts to drop, there are some elements that can already be illustrative in a certain way. Like, for example, the apparent difficulties of Ducati, who saw how Pecco Bagnaia suffered the first and only fall of the training session, and how none of his eight Demosedici could get into the top ten.

On the opposite side, Honda positioned itself, with its four RC213V among the ten fastest motorcycles of this first contact.

The first of them, that of Takaaki Nakagami, was 56 thousandths behind Binder, in second place, while Alex Rins was placed with the third fastest time, one tenth behind the first despite riding all the time with the same rubber game.

Pol Espargaró positioned himself fourth, with only 11 thousandths of a margin over Marc Márquez, his neighbor in the HRC workshop. Franco Morbidelli, sixth, was the first among the Yamaha representatives, while Joan Mir finished seventh, already half a second off the lead.

Aleix Espargaró, who led the first half of practice, was eighth, and Alex Márquez (ninth) and Miguel Oliveira (tenth) closed a most striking top ten, of which Fabio Quartararo (eleventh), the champion, stayed outside.

Also Jorge Martin (12th), Jack Miller (13th) and Bagnaia (18th), as well as Maverick Viñales (15th) and Raúl Fernández (21st), who finished almost two seconds from the first.

MotoGP FP1 classification:

Cla	#	Pilot	Motorcycle	laps	Weather	Difference	Interval	Km/h	Top speed
1	33	Brad Binder	KTM	16	1’54.851			168.635	347
2	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	17	1’54,907	0.056	0.056	168,553	350
3	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	17	1’54.978	0.127	0.071	168.449	355
4	44	Pol Espargaro	Sling	17	1’55.126	0.275	0.148	168,233	350
5	93	Marc Márquez	Sling	18	1,55,137	0.286	0.011	168,216	352
6	21	Franco Morbidelli	Yamaha	18	1’55.294	0.443	0.157	167,987	345
7	36	Joan Mir	Suzuki	16	1’55.371	0.520	0.077	167.875	352
8	41	Aleix Espargaró	April	16	1’55,378	0.527	0.007	167,865	348
9	73	Alex Marquez	Sling	17	1,55,385	0.534	0.007	167,855	349
10	88	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	17	1,55,470	0.619	0.085	167,731	347
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