Ducati dominates second practice, Mir and Rossi set for Q1

Factory rider Jack Miller led a Ducati-dominated second practice session for the Doha Grand Prix in Qatar, while reigning champion Joan Mir and seven-time champion Valentino Rossi are set to contest Q2.

Just like in Friday practice last weekend, the pecking order from FP1 was rendered irrelevant for the combined practice classification almost right away as riders improved en masse in the cooler conditions, with Miller’s Ducati team-mate Bagnaia immediately going seven tenths clearer than Aleix Espargaro’s FP1 benchmark.

But as qualifying simulations began with 10 minutes to go and laptimes started to tumble, Aprilia rider Espargaro reclaimed the top spot with a 1m53.646s.

This looked set to fall as Miller went quicker through the first three sectors, but the Australian suddenly lost the rear through the high-speed Turn 14 right-hander – and though he’d held on to the bike and avoided a terrifying highside, it was a big shake and he immediately returned to the pits.

Serious wake up call for @jackmilleraus! 😲#DohaGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/tnMxaDJlWF

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 2, 2021

But he was back on track immediately, and soon strung together a much improved 1m53.145s, despite having passed through the dust of a big Turn 7 crash for Takaaki Nakagami right ahead of him.

This time was out of reach for the other riders, as fellow Ducati men Bagnaia and Johann Zarco (Pramac) completed the top three, both three tenths down on Miller – who had topped Friday last weekend as well.

And the Ducati dominance was propped up by Zarco’s rookie team-mate Jorge Martin in fifth, with only Yamaha factory rider Fabio Quartararo managing to disrupt a potential 1-2-3-4 for the Bologna factory, and doing so by just 0.010s.

Espargaro ended up sixth, ahead of Franco Morbidelli (Petronas Yamaha), Alex Rins (Suzuki), Maverick Vinales (Yamaha) and Stefan Bradl, with Honda’s Marc Marquez stand-in sneaking into a provisional Q2 spot by just 0.030s.

This came at the expense of Miguel Oliveira, who led KTM along with 12th-placed Tech3 rider Danilo Petrucci on what was an improved but still difficult day for the Austrian manufacturer.

Mir was only 18th when the chequered flag flew and could only improve to 13th, lapping three tenths slower than his Q2-bound team-mate Rins. He had also missed out on a direct passage to Q2 last weekend, before getting the job done in Q1.

Rossi was the only Yamaha rider to miss out on the top 10 in 14th place, 0.967s off Miller’s effort.

Along with Nakagami, his LCR team-mate Alex Marquez also crashed late on, continuing an accident-filled start to the season for the Honda satellite team. However, both LCR riders were still ahead of Honda’s new boy Pol espargaro, who struggled in 17th place.

Practice 2 Results