Fabio Di Giannantonio set the fastest time in Friday’s practice ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix in MotoGP. The VR46 Ducati rider, who won the race at “Lusail” in 2023, impressed with his performance and set a new track record.
At the end of the official practice session, held under the floodlights at the Qatari circuit, the Italian clocked a lap time of 1:50.406 minutes. This saw him improve the previous record by 0.093 seconds, a mark with which Marc Marquez secured pole position in Qatar in April last year.
Marquez himself, who races with number 93, took second place in the standings, finishing 0.142 seconds behind the leader. Third place went to Marco Bezzecchi of Aprilia, whose deficit to Di Giannantonio was 0.260 seconds.
Francesco Bagnaia produced one of his best Friday performances of the season and ended the session in fourth place, 0.386 seconds off the fastest time. Raul Fernandez completed the top five.
Enea Bastianini, Jorge Martin, Johann Zarco, Ai Ogura and Brad Binder also secured places in the top ten and direct qualification for the second phase of qualifying.
Fermin Aldeguer finished just outside the top ten. The Gresini Ducati rider was 0.038 seconds slower than Binder and will have to go through the first part of qualifying on Saturday. Franco Morbidelli, Luca Marini, Pedro Acosta, Maverick Vinales, Iker Lecuona, Diogo Moreira and Jake Dixon will also take part in it.
For Pedro Acosta, this will be only his third appearance in the first qualifying session since the start of the season. The Spaniard had not found himself in this situation since the Italian Grand Prix at the end of May.
Following the two crashes recorded during the earlier free practice session, the evening session passed without a single accident. The only more serious incident involved Marc Marquez, whose chain came off in the middle of practice shortly before the final corner. The world champion had to push his bike back to the Ducati garage himself.
The Qatar Grand Prix schedule, which is the 20th round of the 2026 MotoGP season, continues on Saturday. The second free practice session will begin at 13:00 Bulgarian time and last 30 minutes, while qualifying is scheduled for 13:40. Its results will determine the starting grid for the sprint and the main race at “Lusail”.