MotoGP: Marc Marquez tops practice 1 in Germany

Honda MotoGP rider Marc Marquez dominated the opening practice session ahead of the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring with championship leader Fabio Quartararo second despite a high-speed crash. Quartararo initially appeared to have hurt his right shoulder, but was able to re-join the action soon after.

Marquez, whose streak of consecutive wins at the Sachsenring stretches back to 2010 in the 125cc class, expected on Thursday this weekend’s German GP to be his first of the season “without physical limitations”, and backed this up in the early stages of FP1 by going top with a 1m22.348s.

Quartararo ultimately wound up best of the rest, 0.168s behind Marquez, having broken up a Honda 1-2-3 that had been propped up by LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami and Marquez’s works team-mate Pol Espargaro.

Three Hondas inside the top four made it a promising opening session of the weekend as Pol Espargaro (Repsol Honda Team) recovered from a Turn 3 crash inside the first ten minutes to finish fourth.

Brother Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini) completed the top five, ahead of Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo Team) who was top Ducati; Alex Rins (Team SUZUKI ECSTAR) was seventh on his return to action.

There was drama in the opening ten minutes for Jorge Martin (Pramac Racing), who crashed at Turn 12, but he returned to the circuit.

Practice 1 Results

Pos Rider Bike Laps Time Gap
1 Marc Marquez Honda 25 1m21.660s 0.000s
2 Fabio Quartararo Yamaha 20 1m21.828s 0.168
3 Takaaki Nakagami Honda 22 1m21.936s 0.276
4 Pol Espargaro Honda 19 1m22.010s 0.350
5 Aleix Espargaro Aprilia 19 1m22.040s 0.380
6 Jack Miller Ducati 22 1m22.051s 0.391
7 Alex Rins Suzuki 19 1m22.076s 0.416
8 Johann Zarco Ducati 22 1m22.148s 0.488
9 Joan Mir Suzuki 22 1m22.172s 0.512
10 Maverick Viñales Yamaha 25 1m22.253s 0.593
11 Francesco Bagnaia Ducati 25 1m22.260s 0.600
12 Miguel Oliveira KTM 22 1m22.324s 0.664
13 Luca Marini Ducati 22 1m22.364s 0.704
14 Franco Morbidelli Yamaha 24 1m22.381s 0.721
15 Enea Bastianini Ducati 20 1m22.477s 0.817
16 Alex Marquez Honda 24 1m22.537s 0.877
17 Lorenzo Savadori Aprilia 21 1m22.612s 0.952
18 Danilo Petrucci KTM 23 1m22.646s 0.986
19 Jorge Martin Ducati 18 1m22.678s 1.018
20 Valentino Rossi Yamaha 23 1m22.691s 1.031
21 Iker Lecuona KTM 24 1m22.728s 1.068
22 Brad Binder KTM 23 1m22.969s 1.309