Ángel Nieto Team MotoGP - Qatar GP FP

2018-03-17 16:15
Karel Abraham and Álvaro Bautista start a new MotoGP season at the Losail International Circuit
Andrea Dovizioso starts the 2018 MotoGP season as one of the favourites in the fight for the title. He was the fastest rider on the opening night of action on Friday, under the floodlights in Losail. The Italian bested another Ducati rider, Danilo Petrucci, with a time six thousandths of a second quicker than him in the final stages of the second Free Practice session. The two of them, together with Álex Rins, Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Iannone, were the fastest on a night in which a total of nine riders finished within half a second of each other.

The Angel Nieto Team started the World Championship with both riders battling a lack of grip with their tyres. Karel Abraham was the fastest of the pair with a time of 1:56.394, after completing 26 laps. The Czech rider improved significantly in the second session of the day and hopes to maintain that upward trend tomorrow. Teammate Álvaro Bautista's grip issues with his rear tyre have been affecting his corner entry and exit thus far. The Spaniard finished a little over a tenth slower than Abraham and hopes to continue working to fight for the top positions in the Qatar GP.

21st Karel Abraham 1:56.394 (26 laps): "We have room for improvement to go faster and I think I can get there tomorrow, but today's result is not bad in any case. It's not where I wanted to be, because we have difficulties with grip and I don't have a good feeling with the front end either. Today was difficult because in the first session the bike stopped when we left pit lane and we had to go back in, losing some time. In the end I went out with the other bike. In the second session I was able to solve a lot of what prevented us from improving and now we have to work to solve the rest of the issues."

23rd Álvaro Bautista 1:56.528 (25 laps): "Throughout the day we worked on getting more rear grip, which is the biggest obstacle that we have encountered since the first day I got on the bike. We tried a couple of things that didn't work, and at the end of the day I couldn't lower my lap times because with new tyres we were also trying some other modifications. We hope tomorrow will go better, because I don't have the best feeling. Without rear grip it is difficult to handle cornering. From the first day I got on the bike we have had this feeling."

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