Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS riders, Tom Lüthi and Franco Morbidelli, enjoyed a positive second day at the Losail International circuit in Qatar, despite rain showers disrupting the early part of the test.

Lüthi and Morbidelli were on their first run of the day when drops of rain started falling in the paddock and across parts of the circuit. While it wasn't wet enough to even dampen the circuit, with rain appearing on their visors the riders on track quickly abandoned their runs and returned to the pit box.

Within 30 minutes the rain had moved on and testing resumed in warm and sunny conditions, with the floodlights eventually being brought into play as darkness fell with three hours of the test left to run.

Lüthi and Morbidelli continued where they left off yesterday, working with their respective crews to further increase both feeling and confidence with the Michelin shod Honda RC213V, with positive results. 

Lüthi finished today almost a second faster compared to yesterday, while Morbidelli improved his previous best time by more than half a second.

Tom Lüthi: 1'56.295
“It was a bit of a waiting game at the start because of the little bit of rain we had, but we eventually got out on track and managed to get some work done. For me it's still about going out, learning lap by lap, exit by exit because I still have a lot to learn, but we're definitely going in the right direction and improving step by step. We've seen some improvements; not with anything specific but with a little bit of everything. At the moment for me it's not a case of overcoming one problem, but more about bringing everything together, the set up, the riding style so I feel more comfortable on the bike. Now I have more feeling, but I'm still far away from having the same confidence in the front as I did in Moto2, so I need more laps. But, overall, I'm happy to have made a step forward again today.” 

Franco Morbidelli: 1'56.074
“The second day here in Qatar is going pretty well. We've made some improvements compared to yesterday, which is good. Unfortunately yesterday we weren't able to use the soft tyre properly; today we are working to improve both our pace and feeling with the medium compound tyre. So far in testing we haven't made any big changes to the set up of the bike, but we want to try a few things tomorrow, to see if we can reduce the tendency for the bike to wheelie, which makes it very physical to ride. Overall it has been another good day on the bike and I hope we can continue to improve tomorrow.”