After two ferrocious night battles at Qatar, the calendar has its next stop at  the “Autódromo Internacional do Algarve” for this year’s Portuguese GP. A fast track filled with uphills and downhills that can be a issue for the teams to find a suitable configuration on track

First Q1 had an inusual higher expectancy and also some missing riders. At first, it was the return of Marc Marquez to a qualy session after he missed all the previous season and even the first two rounds of the calendar, meanwhile the grid wouldn’t saw Jorge Martin and Takaaki Nakagami, as both riders suffered big incidents on previous free practice sessions.

The session was pretty much dominated by the last former world champions Joan Mir and Marc Marquez, as both riders ironically found constantly on track, other good times were made by Alex Marquez, Pol Espargaro and Brad Binder. But couldn’t compared to the two spaniard riders. Rossi keeps having issues with the bike and Tech 3 KTM still haven’t made it to a Q2 session.

Q1 results:

13. Álex Márquez /// 14. Pol Espargaró /// 15. Brad Binder
16. Enea Bastianini /// 17. Valentino Rossi /// 18. Danilo Petrucci
19. Iker Lecuona /// 20. Lorenzo Savadori

Didn’t took part of Qualy session: Takaaki Nakagami, Jorge Martin

Second qualy session was underway, with another close battle between Ducati and Yamaha in the horizon. with the frenchman Fabio Quartararo leading the standings on the first stint on track, with Franco Morbidelli 2nd and Alex Rins finding his way on provisional front row, problems for Zarco as he loses control of the Pramac bike, but keeps himself on the competition. Marquez didn’t went on track for the first stint as a precautionary measure because of his previous arm injury.

Many red sectors were hit on the last stint of the session, as Quartararo improved his time as provisional pole and no one could be close to beat him. But suddenly a Ducati rider emerged, as Francesco Bagnaia took the provisional pole with a storming lap, with Quartararo behind and Alex Rins on 3rd.

But suddenly, an announcement was made. There was an incident where Oliveira went to the gravel with yellow flags on track. Bagnaia lap was invalidated and demoted to 11th. Quartararo recieved the pole and Johann Zarco closes the front row

Q1 results:

1. Fabio Quartararo /// 2. Álex Rins /// 3. Johann Zarco
4. Jack Miller /// 5. Franco Morbidelli /// 6. Marc Marquez
7. Aleix Espargaró /// 8. Luca Marini/// 9. Joan Mir
10. Miguel Oliveira /// 11. Francesco Bagnaia /// 12. Maverick Viñales

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Dramatic qualy session that saws the first Yamaha on pole this season, meanwhile a Honda bike finally saw a good starting position after a remarkable performance of Marquez after a big injury abscense. Quite an interesting race could happend tomorrow with the parity that is present on the grid.