Romano Fenati lowered the lap record still further as he and Jakub Kornfeil continued to set the pace in free practice ahead of the Qatar Moto3 Grand Prix. The pair were first and second in FP1 and despite a rapid start to FP2 by Alex Marquez, they would prove the class of the field once again in the night’s second session.
Estrella Galicia were the quickest team out of the traps as Alex Rins and Alex Marquez took turns at the top the leaderboard and the younger Spaniard was in particularly impressive form, clocking a 2:06.647 to go underneath Fenati’s best lap time from earlier in the evening.
Marquez held onto the fastest time for much of the session before Jack Miller emerged to challenge him in the last ten minutes. The Australian set a 2:06.427 but he was quickly usurped by Kornfeil and the Czech looked set to improve again in the dying seconds only to lose time in the final sector, opening the door for Fenati to sneak in front of him with a 2:06.168.
Niccolo Antonelli, one of the stars of testing, took fourth behind Miller with Alexis Masbou beating Marquez in the end to finish fifth. Isaac Vinales was seventh on the second Calvo KTM while John McPhee bounced back brilliantly from his FP1 difficulties to finish eighth, leading last year’s title runner-up Alex Rins.
