Vinales leads Yamaha 1-2 in post-race MotoGP Barcelona test

Maverick Vinales led a Yamaha 1-2 in the MotoGP post-race test at Barcelona following the Catalan Grand Prix.

Vinales, who has a new crew chief in Silvano Galbusera and said he would focus on the feeling with the front of the bike in the test, took the lead over team-mate Fabio Quartararo by 0.021s with 50 minutes left on the clock.

He went quicker with the next attempt to end up 0.137s ahead of the points leader, although was still half a second down on Quartararo’s pole time from Saturday.

Sixth in the championship and 40 points down on Quartararo, Vinales had also topped the Monday test after the Jerez race.

Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda) was best of the rest behind the two Yamaha riders, having briefly taken first place from long-time leader Joan Mir.

Lining up alongside Mir at Suzuki was test rider Sylvain Guintoli, who wasn’t scheduled to ride but has taken the place of the injured Alex Rins. The Hamamatsu firm says it didn’t have any new “hardware” to run but was rather just trialling set-up items and electronics settings.

Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Pol Espargaro (Honda) completed the top six, but both had crashes. Bagnaia fell at Turn 5 in what Ducati described as a “small crash” and though he was reported to be unhurt, the crash ended his programme for the day. Espargaro, however, set his fastest time after his Turn 9 fall.

There was also a crash for Bagnaia’s team-mate Jack Miller, who ended the day in 14th.

Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati), Franco Morbidelli (Petronas Yamaha), Catalan GP winner Miguel Oliveira (KTM) and Valentino Rossi (Petronas Yamaha) completed the top 10. Morbidelli only did 29 laps, ending his programme at lunchtime.

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On the contrary, 11th-placed Marc Marquez was the busiest rider on track, logging 87 laps in what he’d described as a test that was “much more important” for Honda than Sunday’s race.

KTM was present with two test bikes alongside its main roster and it also allowed the Tech3 riders to try out the new chassis that propelled Oliveira to the Barcelona win.

Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro had to miss the test due to recurring problems with his right arm, which he’d had an operation on in May and which kept building up liquid during the Barcelona weekend.

He was replaced by Aprilia test rider Matteo Baiocco, the ex-WSBK rider and three-time Italian Superbike champion completing over 60 laps and ending up seven seconds down in the classification.

Session results