Cal Crutchlow blitzes field in FP4 in Qatar

from Twowheelsblog

Cal Crutchlow is in a state of grace. The Yamaha Tech3 rider dominated the new half hour FP4 session with a blistering lap of 1:55.655 and was the first rider to break the 1.56 barrier this weekend and he was followed by Marc Marquez who also joined him under the 1.56s but he did it on hard tires and finally didn’t run off track.

Jorge Lorenzo took the third spot on the timesheets and while he was +0.485s adrift, but it looks that his race has improved by at least two tenths of a second from yesterday.

Valentino Rossi was fourth followed by LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl, an excellent Andrea Dovizioso who was a little more than seven tenths from Crutchlow. Dani Pedrosa seems to have solved his corner entry problems even if he was only 7th, but his best lap time was done on very used soft tires (more than the race distance).

Nicky Hayden was 8th followed by who Ben Spies suffered a crash when his Ducati folded as he was outside the racing line. He’ll have to start the Q1 with a bruised and battered left shoulder. Alvaro Bautista closed out the top ten. Yonny Hernandez was another rider who also suffered a crash.

MotoGP Qatar FP4 results:

01- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – 1’55.655
02- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.342
03- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.485
04- Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.506
05- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 0.657
06- Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 0.723
07- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.743
08- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.230
09- Ben Spies – Ignite Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.405
10- Alvaro Bautista – GO&FUN Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 1.408