Barbera again fastest Ducati rider on second day at Qatar

Excitement continued to build on the second day of the first round of the season in Qatar, which saw two free practice sessions for the MotoGP class. With riders interchanging positions throughout the evening, the chase for points on Sunday night looks wide open, even if the battle for victory could be a closed shop.

MAPFRE Aspar rider Héctor Barberá continued to impress, following on from his third fastest time yesterday with sixth place overall today, proving that his early form on the Ducati is no flash in the pan. Héctor was controlled and comfortable on the Desmosedici again today, improving yesterday’s best effort by a tenth on his fifth lap of the second session and then going even faster on his penultimate lap of 21 in total. For the second day he has the privilege of being the fastest Ducati rider on track and set the outright top speed at 327.7km/h.

6th Héctor Barberá 1.56.266 (39 laps): “Yesterday we finished third fastest and after improving slightly today we’re sixth, which isn’t bad at all. There is still a long way to go in this Grand Prix but we have started the season well and these results are a confidence boost. We need to improve our consistency to be setting regular mid to low 1’56s if we want to have a good result on Sunday. We haven’t made big changes but we have improved from one session to the next and we will continue refining small details. I tried a long run on a soft tyre but it didn’t work well and it was on the harder one that I improved at the end. I am unsure about tyre choice at the moment because I am comfortable on both. At the end of the session I saw Álvaro’s crash and I just want to take this opportunity to wish him all the best.”

Source: Mapfre Aspar Team