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Moto2, QATAR TEST DAY 3 – All eyes on Navarro and Salac

TIMES - The Spaniard and the Czech were the best in the final winter tests in Losail. Among the Italians: Di Giannantonio and Bastianini did well in Moto2 and Arbolino in Moto3

Moto2: QATAR TEST DAY 3 – All eyes on Navarro and Salac

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With the chequered flag on the Losail straight, the winter tests are over for the Moto3 and Moto2 classes, which will find themselves on track this coming Friday, together with the premier MotoGP class (WHICH HAS NOW BEEN CANCELLED), for the first free practice session of the season.

The standings show that the winter champions were Navarro and Salac, but as always the competition is intense and fierce, and the Italians are not hanging around either.

MOTO2: Nobody can stop Navarro and Speed ​​Up

On the third day of Losail testing, the protagonists were once again Jorge Navarro and his Speed ​​Up, who finished the winter tests in front of the rest with a time of 1’58.520. An excellent performance by the Spanish rider but also by the Italian 'factory' which placed 3 bikes in the top 6: Fabio Di Giannantonio is 3rd and the surprising debutant Aron Canet in 6th.

Remy Gardner finished in 2nd place, while Marcel Schrotter was 4th, ahead of Enea Bastiani, who was also on good form in these winter tests. The same can be said of Luca Marini, 7th today ahead of Xavi Vierge and the Italian pairing of Lorenzo Baldassarri and Nicolò Bulega.

On the last day in Qatar, however, the MV Agusta failed to shine, with Stefano Manzi in 20th place and Simone Corsi in 26th. Some difficulties also for Marco Bezzecchi (23rd) and Lorenzo Dalla Porta (24th) whose adaptation to Moto2 is proving more difficult than expected.


Moving on to the 3-day combined times, the name of the top rider, Jorge Navarro, remains the same, but behind him is Jorge Martin, followed by Gardner and Di Giannantonio. 6th place went to Bastianini, behind Schrotter and in front of Canet, Bulega, Roberts and Marini.

MOTO3: Arbolino right behind Ogura and Salac

The third and final day of testing in Qatar ended with two riders considered to be outsiders ahead of everyone else: Japan’s Ai Ogura and Filip Salac of the Czech Republic. If you want, you can also reverse the names, because the two men lapped with the same time to the thousandth (2’05.411) but the top slot goes to the Asia team because he set the time in the second session of the day.

Tony Arbolino also defended himself well, right after the leading pair by few thousandths, 24 to be exact, and the same can be said for Tatsuki Suzuki, 12 thousandths behind the Italian. Today, the Japanese man was the only rider of the Squadra Corse SIC58 team on the track because Niccolò Antonelli was feeling the worsening effects of the condition of his left shoulder injured during the past season.

Continuing down the timesheets, it was John McPhee who put the fifth Honda in front of everyone, while the man who best got to grips with the KTM was Albert Arenas, 6th ahead of Raul Fernandez. Followed by two Italians: Dennis Foggia with the Leopard Honda and Celestino Vietti with the SKY KTM, while Deniz Oncu wrapped up the top ten.

After missing the first day of testing because of flu, Romano Fenati was 16th, better than Migno in 18th and the last rider to have limited the gap from the leaders to under one second. Andrea Andrea was behind Pizzoli, while Rossi and Nepa finished the day in 26th and 27th positions respectively.

Turning to the combined three-day times, the top 3 don’t change much, with the difference that it is Salac (the only one to drop below 2'05 and more than half a second quicker than his closest rivals) who is ahead of Ogura and the other rider of the Snipers team Arbolino, with Suzuki remaining in 4th. Behind him is Dennis Foggia, with Rodrigo, Masia and McPhee next up, for a total of eight Hondas in front of everyone else. Then Arenas and Fernandez make up the top ten with the KTMs.

Not good news for the other Italians: Vietti is 13th, Fenati 17th, Migno 20th, Pizzoli 22nd, Antonelli 23rd, Nepa 25th and Rossi 27th.

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