Pol Espargaro and Stefan Bradl kept their heads down and focused on Sunday as the first qualifying of 2021 began in Losail. The couple stood on the fourth and sixth row of the grid.
Saturday in Qatar started under an even more punishable sky when track temperatures rose by 50 ° C. The MotoGP field made the most of track time in Free Practice 3 regardless, but the temperatures meant the combined times didn’t change. As on Friday, the conditions would steadily improve over the course of the evening.
As a result, Pol Espargaro made the straight-through pass to the second quarter and hit the first goal of his opening weekend with the Repsol Honda team. Saturday as a whole turned out to be a more complicated day for Espargaro as he continued to learn the Honda under the different conditions of the day. Regardless of the bottom line, Espargaro will be ready for a fight when the lights go out on Sunday after showing improvements during his final run in the second quarter. Espargaro will line up on the fourth row of the grid for his first race in the colors of the Repsol Honda team. He and his side of the Repsol Honda Team are eagerly awaiting the return to the warm up.
Stefan Bradl put together an overall impressive day with the Repsol Honda RC213V, finishing eighth in Free Practice 4 with constant times before starting the first quarter. The times in the 15-minute session were incredibly close, seven drivers apart within half a second. Just 0.418 seconds before Nakagami’s best time and only 0.267 seconds before a transfer position, Bradl finished 17th on the grid in the race on Sunday. The German is of the opinion that due to his racing pace he should improve the order during the race.
The flag will fall in the opening race of 2021 at 8:00 p.m. local time on Sunday March 27th. The 22-lap race should be exciting to open the new season.