Motorcycling: Espargaro tops testing, brother heads for hospital

Doha: Spanish brothers Aleix and Pol Espargaro topped pre-season MotoGP testing on Sunday but Pol`s day ended in a broken collar bone and a trip to hospital for surgery.

Aleix, riding for the Yamaha-FTR team, clocked a best time of 1min 54.874sec on the Losail track, just 0.160sec off the pole position time of Jorge Lorenzo on the factory Yamaha M1 last year. Younger brother Pol, the world champion in the Moto2 division in 2013 before stepping up to the elite class for 2014, was second fastest, 0.33sec behind on the Yamaha Tech3. But he suffered a fall late in the session and will require surgery on his collar bone in Barcelona on Monday. The five factory teams in the MotoGP championship did not take part in the three-day test in Qatar after testing tyres in Australia last week. The new season gets under way in Qatar on March 23.