Submitted by David Emmett on
Casey Stoner's imperious reign over the MotoGP class at Qatar suffered the smallest of dents in the final session of free practice at Qatar. The Australian ended up atop the timesheets for the third session in a row, but his advantage had shrunk to just a tenth of a second by the end of FP3. The competition came from his Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa, the Spaniard even leading FP3 for a large part of the session. Stoner upped his pace at the end of the session to take the top spot.
Results:
| Pos | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff | Diff Previous |
| 1 | 27 | Casey STONER | HONDA | 1'55.035 | ||
| 2 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | HONDA | 1'55.193 | 0.158 | 0.158 |
| 3 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | HONDA | 1'55.740 | 0.705 | 0.547 |
| 4 | 1 | Jorge LORENZO | YAMAHA | 1'55.814 | 0.779 | 0.074 |
| 5 | 11 | Ben SPIES | YAMAHA | 1'56.003 | 0.968 | 0.189 |
| 6 | 8 | Hector BARBERA | DUCATI | 1'56.266 | 1.231 | 0.263 |
| 7 | 5 | Colin EDWARDS | YAMAHA | 1'56.302 | 1.267 | 0.036 |
| 8 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | DUCATI | 1'56.306 | 1.271 | 0.004 |
| 9 | 14 | Randy DE PUNIET | DUCATI | 1'56.362 | 1.327 | 0.056 |
| 10 | 65 | Loris CAPIROSSI | DUCATI | 1'56.434 | 1.399 | 0.072 |
| 11 | 35 | Cal CRUTCHLOW | YAMAHA | 1'56.437 | 1.402 | 0.003 |
| 12 | 7 | Hiroshi AOYAMA | HONDA | 1'56.517 | 1.482 | 0.080 |
| 13 | 58 | Marco SIMONCELLI | HONDA | 1'56.540 | 1.505 | 0.023 |
| 14 | 69 | Nicky HAYDEN | DUCATI | 1'56.586 | 1.551 | 0.046 |
| 15 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | DUCATI | 1'57.275 | 2.240 | 0.689 |
| 16 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | SUZUKI | 1'57.601 | 2.566 | 0.326 |
| 17 | 24 | Toni ELIAS | HONDA | 1'58.123 | 3.088 | 0.522 |
2011
Comments
oil leak ?
Oil leak on Stoner boot ?
Casey looked like he spent
Casey looked like he spent the whole session on soft tyres just trying to beat Danis time, in stark contrast, Dani spent the rest of the session on race tyres.. I'm not convinced the fat lady has cleared her throat just yet.. Just different approaches...
Go Rossi!!!
I think it's the opposite
Did you see the session ?
Stoner was on hard front and rear on his last 2 runs....
http://resources.motogp.com/files/results/xx/2011/QAT/MotoGP/FP3/Analysi...
she may be singing lorenzo's song
His 2nd run of 13 laps was all from 55.8 to 56.3. Quite impressive.
Chris
http://moto2-usa.blogspot.com/
Was he on hard front and rear
Was he on hard front and rear tyres? They should use different colors like in F1, not just the white stripe which is sometimes confused with the white "bridgestone" spinning around. Anyway, that was an impressive run.
It is
Starting to look serious. Boots seem to be getting dug in. The times are rapidly falling. And would someone get rid of Hector Barbera. All his top times should be wiped from the timesheet. All he does is draft. Seems to be WAY too much of that going on.
No Suzuki in the race?
Seems Bautista has a fractured femur, so no Suzuki for the rest of the weekend?
Hopkins
Hopkins went to Qatar for the tests so, maybe he is still there.
Yep Tex, just re watched it,
Yep Tex, just re watched it, Casey on the hard stuff, gonna be easy for him. I reckon only Rossi can beat a full on Casey(see 08) but he needs the right kit.... Lets hope he still has trouble at the next 4 or 5 or will be a bloody awful season to watch... roll on qp 1.54s I reckon..
That honda is a very good bike this year.
Nice work by Cal
Getting better and better, it seems. Clever, talented, brave and very, very determined. He's a good guy and someone to watch as the season unfolds. And he defers to no man, as Max had to learn in WSBK. Always nice to see.
?
When did Max learn this? When he beat Crutchlow most race weekends during the year?
Still, I hope he does well. He proved hes super fast last year with all those poles and fastest laps, he now just has to do it for the whole race and he should be fine.
Sucks for Bautista, real bad luck. Hope Hopper gets a shot and shines! Would love to see him back in Gps..
Predictable....
The Sunday race is gonna be some sort of boring to me, because two repsol hondas are gonna be running away right from the start till the finish line, while the rest of the field are just fighting for the third placed-podium and some points left. I do know that hondas fans are gonna be mad and disagree reading my comments, but it is real man, just my own opinion. To me, It would be much better to see a close fight, dogfight, however, the gaps are quite big for the rest to catch up or stay with the repsol hondas.
Predictable.......??.
Simple solution. Turn off TV.
Maybe NASCAR is more suitable for your type..............all the manufactured " excitement " you need..........
+1
Exactly what was in my mind and I agree about the Nascar comments. I believe the appreciation and respect for motorcycle racers will be highly enhanced should one attend a trackday. Racing a motorcycle is dangerous, unlike racing a car.
I hope Bautista get well soon. That crash looks very very painful.
And what happened during the last lap on Daytona 200 this year was crazy too.
This also brought up the sad incident of Shoya last year in Moto2.
So the guy basically wants
So the guy basically wants closer racing and not for the race to be determined 2 laps in and y'all are dogging him?
Not my intent, of course.
The racing yet to start, nobody knows what will be the outcome. Let's all sit back and enjoy the show come Sun, close racing or not. Everybody is free to discuss the race after it happened.
Cheers!
Should day remove a few gears?
So you think the HRC team should remove 1,5 and 6 so the rest of the field can be competitive?
The name of the game is demolish your opponents no battle with them and see if we can win.
" The name of the game is demolish your opponents............"
Exactly !!!
A runaway win is like watching an artiste practicing his craft to perfection.
You can't blame honda.... but...
What rohab is saying is he wanted to see some racing... not one legged men in an ass kicking contest - which I fear is going to be the case if you're not riding a honda, and your name is not Toni Elias...
Hope I am wrong!! I still love to see them riding, but 3/4 of a second over 22 laps is a 15 second lead or there abouts... Stoner is the fastest rider out there (even when he's not on the fastest bike) but a great racer he's not.. which won't matter if he's 10 seconds ahead.
I fear we're in for another year of processional racing..
You've really got my points, guys.
Doughnuts and Sparky,( sorry, if you dislike close racing like I do) both of you do understand what I am trying to say.I just hope that motogp race is not like f1 race, in which the starting grids for the race is almost the same with the race results, there are only few overtaking maneuvers too.
Not so sure
Stoner is certainly fast at Qatar and seems to have a goo bike under him but Lorenzo set a couple of long series of fast laps in the 1'55-1'56 range - much longer than Stoner's runs. I may be wrong but Lorenzo is as good a position as could be for a rider not taking the top spot in practice.
http://motomatters.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1269&start=200#p29733
I believe you're mistaken
Lorenzo was the third rider to break into the 1'55 laptimes but did so only during FP3 and only 3 times while Stoner broke into the 1'55 5 times in FP1, 8 times in FP2 and 5 times in FP3.
So Stoner is not only much faster (0.779) but also more regular in these times than Lorenzo (or Pedrosa or anyone else for that matter).
And?
FP3 times mean a lot more than FP1 (or FP2) times. Finding the right setup and being able to execute at race time are what FP3 is about. Look at Pedrosa who has a tendency to show poorly in early practice sessions but stronger in QP and then dominates a race. Those long strings of fast laps by Lorenzo are a lot more meaningful than a few blistering laps. Of course, if Stoner can maintain that pace all race, then clearly he has it under control but we haven't seen it yet.