English
Italiano
Fireworks were expected, and so it was. The first qualifiers of the year confirmed just how high the level of this season promises to be and how difficult it is to make predictions on the progress of each individual session. In fact, after the first day of practice, the Ducatis were expected to shine, but instead it was Johann Zarco who stole the show. The Frenchman seemed to be in difficulty after his tenth place time on Friday and a crash in FP4, but he literally thrashed the competition in the last available lap, stopping the clock at a time of 1’53”680.
It was a commanding performance, thanks to which he smashed (-0.247) the previous track record set by Jorge Lorenzo in 2008, when there were still 800 machines and qualifying tyres. Behind the Frenchman was Marc Marquez, also managing to pull himself out of an apparently less than ideal situation; two tenths separate him from the leader, whereas he was only thousandths ahead of Danilo Petrucci who, despite some problems with traffic, finishes out the first row as the first of the Ducati riders.
In the session of surprises, there was also space for Cal Crutchlow (+0.392), fourth ahead of Andrea Dovizioso. The Italian had hovered at the top of the standings after his first time attack, but then he was unable to repeat the performance on the second useful lap; in any case, Dovi can smile wider than teammate Jorge Lorenzo, forced to settle for ninth place, more than seven tenths behind the leader. Continuing down through the standings, a sixth place for Alex Rins was positive, the first of the Suzuki riders, given Iannone’s eleventh place time (+0.939), whereas Dani Pedrosa took seventh place.
Yamaha can smile with Zarco, but with the factory riders – not so much: Valentino Rossi was unable to do better than eighth place, while Maverick Viñales closed out the Q2 rankings in 12th place, also being the only rider with more than a one second gap behind Zarco. Number 25 seemed to have found the straight and narrow both in FP4 and in Q1, but then he floundered at the key moment. The script was similar for Jack Miller who went through to Q2 as the best in Q1, but was then forced to settle for the ninth spot on the grid. Looking further down in the standings, Aprilia had to settle for the 13th and 17th place times done by Aleix Espargaró and Scott Redding, while Franco Morbidelli and Hafizh Syahrin cut a fine figure, respectively 14th and 15th ahead of many other riders.
