Ducati’s Qatar MotoGP test party was only spoiled by reigning champion Marc Marquez today as the Repsol Honda man stopped Andreas Dovizioso and Iannone from completing a timesheet topping one-two for the second session in row using their hard tyre.

Team leader Dovizioso, on the now-with-wings GP15, set a 1’54.907 to be the only man under the 1’55 barrier and is edging closer to Marquez’ 2014 pole time of 1’54.507 while only Marquez was anywhere near the two Bologna bikes.

The Spaniard stuck in a 1’55.091 to end less than two tenths off but only 0.013 ahead of Iannone, which proves the GP15 has some phenomenal pace over a single lap at Losail, and the track hasn’t as yet rubbered in properly.

Because of the speed shown by the Andreas, there has been much grumbling they shouldn’t be allowed to use the soft tyre but the team’s press man Julian Thomas has confirmed to bikesportnews.com this evening that the soft tyre has gone nowhere near either of the bikes and all times have been set on the hardest tyre in their allocation - medium overall.

So both Ducatis have qualifying pace on the their hardest tyre, which is the soft option for the works Hondas and Yamahas, and as they get the bike - which was brand new and untested at Sepang II - better setup, it can only go faster.

Although Dovizioso didn’t do a race simulation, he put in 14 1’55s laps from his total of 38. Marquez did 21 from a total of 54 laps. In terms of a race distance, they are very evenly matched indeed.

This will not please Yamaha one bit as it is supposed to be an M1 circuit. Former champion Jorge Lorenzo was fastest of the Movistar bikes in fourth place, by only 0.081s over Rossi in fifth, but he was six-tenths slower than Dovizioso while Dani Pedrosa was equal to The Doctor give or take one-one thousandth.

Lorenzo managed just nine out his 51 total laps while Rossi did one less than his team-mate. Pedrosa weighed in with just six out of 40. Cal Crutchlow, by comparison, managed two out of his 42 laps and the fastest came just two laps from the end. He finished in seventh place, one ahead of Bradley Smith, who was probably expecting to have a bit of a ding-dong with the Ducatis at the end of the month.

Smith’s Monster Yamaha team-mate Pol Espargaro was ninth while Karel Abraham, on the Open class RC213VR-S, took tenth. He managed two 1’55s laps and wasn’t caravanning as they came 13 laps apart. Abraham ended some four tenths quicker than Nicky Hayden on the next best Open Honda.

Yonny Hernandez, on a hard-shod Pramac Ducati, ended in 11th place with Aleix Espargaro 12th. Scott Redding improved his personal best by three tenths but slipped down the order. Eugene Laverty finished in 18th and only 1.4s off the pace.

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