Álex Márquez was fastest in Free Practice One at the Catalonia Grand Prix. Márquez was 0.3 seconds faster than Jorge Martín and Fabio Di Giannantonio, making a Ducati sandwich. With a steady opening session to the weekend, all the riders were struggling to find time on the cold track.
Pit lane opened for 45 minutes of practice for the MotoGP grid. This is one of the main practice sessions of the weekend, so that everyone can collect as much data as possible.
The early pace was set by last weekend’s race winner, Jorge Martín, Pedro Acosta, and Marco Bezzecchi. Within the first 10 minutes, all of the manufacturers were in the top 10 of the field: three Hondas, two Ducatis, two Aprilias, two KTMs and one Yamaha.
Maverick Viñales made his return after three rounds away after a shoulder surgery. While one returns, someone else stays at home, as Marc Márquez is out this weekend after surgery on his shoulder after a screw was pressing on his nerves. He has no replacement for this weekend, so all of Ducati’s factory hopes are on Francesco Bagnaia.
While the two factory Aprilias looked fast in the early session, the Trackhouse bikes seemed to be struggling, sitting at the bottom of the field. After Ai Ogura’s podium at Le Mans, we may have expected to see better from him this morning. As always, this circuit brings some amazing footage of the riders going around turn five, especially Martín.
The top 17 for the majority of the session were covered by 0.6 seconds, which shows how close MotoGP is this year. While the strongest bikes are still the Ducati and Aprilia, it is good to see the other manufacturers catching up.
All the Crashes
Within the session, there were three crashes. Martín crashed at turn 12. While the crash initially didn’t look that big, Martín followed the bike into the air bag and seemed to be struggling to get back to his feet. He got back to the box, took some time away from the camera, and came back out looking sprightly and much better than before.
Martín’s crash was shortly followed by Acosta hitting the floor at turn 2. He was ok and ran back to the pits.
Brad Binder had a very similar crash to Acosta five minutes later. He was also ok.
Overall, the session was quite quiet. The track was cold, which may have affected the times. People seemed to be struggling to improve their times until the final two minutes. It was eventually Álex Márquez who went fastest overall.
Free Practice One Top 10
P1: #73 Álex Márquez 1:39.950
P2: #89 Jorge Martín +0.349
P3: #49 Fabio Di Giannantonio +0.393
P4: #37 Pedro Acosta +0.438
P5: #72 Marco Bezzecchi +0.472
P6: #23 Enea Bastianini +0.486
P7: #54 Fermín Aldeguer +0.493
P8: #43 Jack Miller +0.516
P9: #21 Franco Morbidelli +0.563
P10: #5 Johann Zarco +0.594
Action will continue later today for MotoGP Practice.