The 2017 MotoGP pre-season came to a close on Sunday with the third and final night of testing in Qatar. The timesheets saw Repsol Honda rider and reigning world champion, Marc Marquez 10th fastest overall with a best time of 1:54.990.
Marquez spent a productive night completing his testing plans, which included electronics, aerodynamics and refinement of general race setup, with the focus on keeping a good race pace. Marc fell once very early in the session and twice after 9 p.m. with no consequences, but he had to abort his race simulation on his sixth lap in the mid-1'55” range.
"I'm happy with the pace we were able to keep but of course it hasn't been the best test of the pre-season for us,” he said. “I crashed three times, the first at the very beginning because the bike had a wobble at turn 4 and I braked late. Then later in the night I lost the front twice, and especially the last crash during my race simulation was my fault.”
“But when you're doing a long run you must try and push, otherwise you can't understand where you really are. Anyway, better if this kind of thing happens now, during a test, and hopefully when we come here again for the race we'll be able to manage things better. As I said, our rhythm is quite good; only Maverick [Viñales] is faster than everyone here, and if we were to race tomorrow I believe we should be able to fight for the podium.”
Action will resume at the same track on Thursday, 23 March, with FP1 for the Grand Prix of Qatar, the opening race of the 2017 MotoGP Championship
