VOL. 54 ISSUE 10 MARCH 14, 2017 P25
have to push," he said, pro-
nouncing himself happy with his
pace and (like teammate Pedro-
sa) that Honda was starting the
season stronger than last year.
Only three riders had failed to
improve on earlier times—Rossi,
four-tenths adrift of his stellar
new teammate, plus 12th-fastest
Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and the
returned injury victim Tito Rabat
(EG-VDS Honda), who was 20th.
Rossi's day-two time had put
him second to Vinales, but he
admitted that "this is my most dif-
ficult pre-season with Yamaha,"
as he still hunted for the right
feeling on the revised Yamaha.
"We put in a lot of effort to go a
bit slower…I think we are still not
ready, and we don't understand
100 percent how to make the
bike at the maximum."
Jack Miller (EG-VDS Honda)
was 16th, behind Ecstar Suzuki
rookie Alex Rins, but still only
just over a second adrift, and
satisfied with "some quality laps.
I'm pretty happy with my consis-
tency. I wasn't quite as fast as I'd
have liked, but it means I have
something up my sleeve when
we come back here to race."
Andrea Iannone was 13th as
he adapts to the Ecstar Suzuki,
saying, "We are improving. Very
slowly. But improving."
Rossi had crashed on day
two, injuring his left hand slightly,
and one of a huge number of
fallers on the difficult circuit,
prone to being very slippery off-
line, made more so by dew, and
with a notorious bump at turn
two.
Marquez had the most with
three falls, along with Aleix Es-
pargaro. Others to fall included
Lorenzo, Bautista, Rins, Miller,
Lowes and Smith.
Michael Scott
MORE WORK AHEAD FOR KTM
T
he youngest bike in MotoGP is
KTM, and the two regular riders
Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro,
along with factory tester Mika Kallio,
occupied the bottom three places on
the final time sheets.
But the all-new bike was, said techni-
cal chief Mike Leitner, "ready to race,
although not to fight for good results."
The Austrians had brought a new
chassis and an upgraded engine
among a raft of parts, and each day the
riders were the first out while others
waited for the afternoon heat to abate,
plowing through a big test program.
Leitner was pleased with the top
speed, but admitted there was a lot of
progress still required. "We are begin-
ners. It will be a long tough season for
us," he said.
Michael Scott
KTM was at the
back in Qatar,
such was the pace
in the final test.
