Jack Miller takes P1 on Friday, as Ducati rule the Top 5.

Ducati Lenovo Team’s Jack Miller was yet again atop the timesheets on Day One at the Losail Circuit, in what would be a Ducati standoff. Teammate Francesco Bagnaia and Pramac Racing’s Johann Zarco rounded out the Top 3, with Jorge Martin in P5. All four Ducatis saw improvements in the second session, where race setup was the focus.

In between the men in red was Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Fabio Quartararo in P4 on the combined timesheets; with a time of 1:53.583, the Frenchman stopped an all-Ducati Top 4 by squeezing out Jorge Martin by just 0.01 of a second. Teammate, and Sunday’s winner, Maverick Viñales ends the day in P9 with a 1:53.872.

Aleix Espargaro finished Friday with yet another strong standing. The Aprilia Racing Team Gresini man lead the charge in the first session, and currently sits in P6 with a combined fastest time of 1:53.646. The Spaniard had a similar result last Friday at the season opener, and had a respectable P7 in the race. Maybe we’ll be seeing more of the elder Espargaro after all.

Petronas Yamaha SRT’s Franco Morbidelli currently sits in 7^th place, while teammate Valentino Rossi ends the day in P14. A mixed result for the Italians on day one, but hopefully they and the team are finding solutions to their issues from Sunday.

Suzuki ECSTAR’s top man today is Alex Rins in P8, with a time of 1:53.713. While teammate Joan Mir resides only 0.299s off of Rins, he is down 5 places in P13.

Stefan Bradl ends Friday as Honda’s top rider in 10^th place. The Repsol Honda man’s teammate Pol Espargaro’s combined result puts him in P17 for now – behind both LCR Honda riders Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez, who sit in 15^th and 16^th place, respectively.

The Esponsorama Racing duo Enea Bastianini and Luca Marini finish today in 19^th and 20^th. With Bastianini’s phenomenal run on Sunday, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see if the rookie can repeat his result this time around too, and hopefully Marini can earn some points come Sunday as well.

The KTMs look set to improve this week, after somewhat of a bad start last week. Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Miguel Oliveira took the team lead in P11, with Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing’s Danilo Petrucci just 0.025 seconds behind in 12^th. Brad Binder currently resides in 18^th, while Iker Lecuona rounds out the grid in P22 – 0.291s behind Lorenzo Savadori on the Aprilia.

With the Top 15 covered by just 1 second – and Marquez just 0.003s outside of that in 16^th – the competition remains ridiculously hot in Qatar.

Who will take Pole tomorrow?

MotoGP’s Free Practice 3 will begin at 15:15 Local Time (GMT +3).

Feature Image: MotoGP.com