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Whilst yesterday the high temperatures hindered the first day of the Doha GP, today it was high winds that affected qualifying at the Losail International Circuit. Pol Espargaró finished in fifth place in Q1, putting him fifteenth on the starting grid, while Stefan Bradl will begin the race one row higher, after taking eleventh in Q2.
In a windy Q1 session, Espargaró set the fifth best time –1:54.402- for a place on the fifth row of the grid, in fifteenth.
Bradl competed in a Q2 that also featured strong winds, finishing in eleventh position. His best time of 1:54.224 earned him a spot on the fourth row for the second race of the season.
The MotoGP Doha Grand Prix will take place tomorrow at 7:00pm (CEST) at the Losail International Circuit.
Rider statements
“I know that tomorrow will be better and that is what is the most frustrating. It’s a bit hard to understand exactly what has happened today. Our first run in Qualifying did not work, I came in and on the second tyre I was able to do more but I lost some tenths with a mistake at the first corner. It’s very frustrating, but tomorrow we go into the race and we will start overtaking and making up ground like last weekend. We need to understand why others have been able to make a big step and we have not been able to.”
“Conditions were more difficult compared to what we were expecting, the wind and the sand were very strong today. We suffered a little with this, especially over one lap to move even higher on the grid. Moving to Q2 directly helped a lot, our hard work yesterday paid off a lot today. In the session itself it was harder to make a lap time, this track has always been a challenge but for tomorrow our race pace is looking better. In FP4 we did a long run and the rhythm was not too bad, we can definitely fight with the others. Let’s see what happens.”