14:11
Marc Marquez finds a bit more time and sets a 1m52.388s.
Pecco Bagnaia, Ducati Corse, 2025 Americas MotoGP
© Gold and Goose
2025 Qatar MotoGP: Friday practice as it happened
Text coverage of the 2025 MotoGP Qatar Grand Prix Friday practice sessions as they happened
The fourth round of the 2025 MotoGP World Championship is the Qatar Grand Prix from the Lusail International Circuit.
The championship battle has effectively been reset after a dramatic third round of the campaign in America, which saw the so-far dominant Marc Marquez crash out of the lead of the grand prix.
This opened the door for factory Ducati team-mate Pecco Bagnaia to score his first win of the season, while another second-place finish for Alex Marquez put him at the top of the standings for the first time in his MotoGP career.
Alex Marquez leads Marc Marquez by one point coming into this weekend's Qatar GP, while Bagnaia - who won at Lusail last year - is just 12 points adrift.
They will all be contenders for victory this weekend, as will VR46 Ducati's Fabio Di Giannantonio, who returned to the podium last time out for the first time since his breakthrough Qatar GP win back in 2023.
The big news coming into this weekend, however, is the return of reigning world champion Jorge Martin, who has been absent since day one of testing thanks to numerous injury woes.
He will make his Aprilia debut this weekend having completed just 13 laps on the RS-GP this year and will be looking to simply get through the round without incident as he tries to accelerate his adaptation to his new bike.
Aprilia has made a decent start to 2025 and will be looking to carry that forward at a decent circuit for the bike.
KTM will be hoping to kickstart its campaign in Qatar having finished on the podium in both races at the circuit last year, while the continued progress of the Japanese marques will be an intriguing subplot to the weekend.
FP1 begins at 1:45pm BST, while Practice is at 6pm BST.
11 Apr 2025
14:09
Marc Marquez improves to a 1m52.742s.
14:08
Zarco has jumped up to sixth, so that early issue not throwing him off his stride.
14:06
Jorge Martin has come back out for his second run.
14:02
Zarco has managed to get onto the board after his early technical dramas and is currently 13th on a 1m54.390s.
14:01
Top three in the world championship already stamping their authority on the field so far. Di Giannantonio in fourth in 0.415s back of third-placed Bagnaia.
14:00
Quartararo isn't too happy with Morbidelli ahead of him as he feels he's being held up.
The VR46 rider is pushing, so I'm not too sure Quartararo can be too upset about that.
13:59
Standings after 15 minutes
- M.Marquez
- A.Marquez
- Bagnaia
- Quartararo
- Mir
- Morbidelli
- Aldeguer
- Acosta
- Miller
- Di Giannantonio
13:58
Bagnaia improves in third and is now just 0.184s off the pace of his team-mate. Marc Marquez said on Thursday that he was expecting his brother and his team-mate to be faster than him this weekend.
13:57
Martin is having a quick debrief with Dr. Charte in his garage after his first run. He is 16th currently with a 1m55.052s.
13:56
Bagnaia gets up to third, but is 0.524s behind Alex Marquez at this stage.
13:54
Quite a big advantage M.Marquez has right now. He's 0.338s clear of Alex Marquez, while third-placed Quartararo is 0.719s further back.
13:53
All change again as Marc Marquez heads Alex Marquez with a 1m53.144s. Jorge Martin's first flying lap puts him 12th.
13:52
Morbidelli has now gone fastest with a 1m54.666s.
13:52
Joan Mir is now top with a 1m54.7s from Bagnaia and Marc Marquez.
13:51
Lots of laps being cancelled for the earlier yellow flags for Zarco's stoppage.
13:50
First laps on the board and Marc Marquez is top with a 1m55.312s.
13:49
Incident - Johann Zarco
Johann Zarco's Honda has conked out at the end of the main straight. Yellow flags are out in sector one.
13:47
For reference, the lap record here is a 1m50.789s.
13:45
Green flag
Pitlane is open for FP1 and Jorge Martin is one of the first out.
13:44
The Doctor is in the house
Valentino Rossi is making his first visit to a MotoGP round this year in Qatar. Given what Di Giannantonio did last time out in America and in Qatar in 2023, that could well prove to be very well-timed.
13:43
Conditions are absolutely scorching for the start of practice, making it largely irrelevant as far as race preparation goes. However, qualifying will be run at this time of day tomorrow, so we'll likely see some time attack laps over the next 45 minutes.
13:40
Aprilia CEO Massimo Rivola has just told his team via radio that today its "real season starts", now it has Martin back in the line-up.
13:36
The championship battle has been somewhat reset coming into this weekend, with Alex Marquez - for the first time in his career - leading the standings by a point from Marc Marquez.
Pecco Bagnaia, who won in Qatar last year, is 12 points back in the standings after his first victory of the season in America.
13:34
Rider changes
As a result of Martin returning, Lorenzo Savadori will not race for Aprilia this weekend.
Injury continues to keep Miguel Oliveira on the sidelines, so he is once again being replaced by Yamaha test rider Augusto Fernandez at Pramac.
Fernandez finished 13th last time out at the Americas GP.
