Intermittent rainfall in Qatar today left the circuit too wet for any meaningful work to be carried out by the assembled MotoGP teams and a lack of final day race runs leaves a lot of questions that can now only be answered in ten days’ time.

The biggest of those questions is how fast over a race distance is the Ducati GP15. There were many concerned, and some unbelieving, faces as Andrea Dovizioso matched Marc Marquez for laptimes on his hard tyre but without an actual race run to see how the rear Bridgestone drops off when put through the Ducati’s mill, it is impossible to figure accurately.

Boss Gigi Dall’Igna, and the team’s Bridgestone technician, will have a better idea than most if Dovizioso, and Andrea Iannone, can live in the 1’55 bracket for most of a race distance at Losail. If they can, it is going to cause some headaches for Dani Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi and maybe Jorge Lorenzo.

Losail is supposed to be a track for the M1. Lorenzo holds the outright circuit best lap, a 1’53.927 set way back in 2008, and Yamaha won there in 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2013. Honda, by comparison, were victorious in 2004, 2011 and, more importantly, 2014 when Marquez with a still-gammy leg and one less test session under his belt held off Rossi for the win.

Lorenzo is a fitter and leaner rider in 2015 than he was in 2014. He has suffered a lack of edge grip in the past two days and had today’s session run, with two days’ rubber and less dust on the surface, his pace would have been evident.

Valentino Rossi put in a whopping 61 laps yesterday, still fine-tuning the seamless gearbox and testing other parts and settings. Although both Yamaha men aren’t hanging their hats on the tenth or two the new gearbox will bring over a lap at some circuits, there is no getting away from the fact that Yamaha finished stronger than Honda in the second half of last year.

Honda went the wrong way at Valencia, giving wunderkind Marc Marquez and Pedrosa a bike they hated. After taking four bikes to Sepang, the pair have settled on bases they like with Marquez typically fast and consistent yesterday. Pedrosa is less so but on his day, the Spaniard is just as fast as his team-mate.

Now we have Dovizioso to throw into the mix and the battle for the podium, at Losail, at least, is more than likely a five-bike dice, or maybe six if Iannone can stay on the bike until the flag.

We don’t know the true pace of Cal Crutchlow. A race simulation today would have been a fairly accurate demonstration. Two laps in the 1’55s yesterday is not indicative of his speed on the RC213V while Scott Redding desperately needed his final day in order just to see where he stacks up. He is top ten all day long, of that there is no question, it is just how far inside it he can get.

Standing in his way are the Monster Yamahas. Both Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro have shown solid if not earth-shattering pace at all the tests so far. Tech3 have received upgrades for 2015 and yesterday, the pair were evenly matched in terms of single-lap speed, separated by 0.010s.