Between the new asphalt and the dirty track, almost all the MotoGP riders complained about the poor grip offered by the Motorland Aragon track, with difficulty stopping the bike when braking, during a first free practice session of the Aragon Grand Prix that we could define as anomalous, to say the least.
With these very particular conditions, the class of Marc Marquez came out once again, and he was the one who took the shortest time to find the feeling with the Spanish ups and downs, which had been missing from the calendar since 2022. The Gresini Racing rider achieved a time of 1’48″289 with his Ducati GP23, putting just under half a second ahead of the closest pursuer, Jorge Martin.
All this, despite losing a few minutes towards the end due to a problem with his first bike, which forced him to switch to the second. As for the Prima Pramac Racing rider, the session began with a long sequence of long braking sections, then slowly he seemed to get his bearings and climbed the standings to second place.
Which, however, cannot be said for the world championship leader Pecco Bagnaia. The Piedmontese just couldn’t find the feeling with the front of his Desmosedici GP, so he mainly tried to stay out of trouble. In any case, the weekend started off decidedly uphill for him, because he finds himself in 21st position, just under two seconds behind.
Going back to scrolling through the standings, this precarious grip seems to smile on KTM, who placed third and fourth with rookie Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder, even if the two RC16s are already separated by more than six tenths.
The good news of the session comes from Fabio Di Giannantonio, because the Pertamina Enduro VR46 rider does not seem to be suffering from the injury to his left shoulder that forced him to give up the Austrian Grand Prix. The Roman is in fifth place, just over six tenths behind, ahead of the other GP23 of Alex Marquez, a rider who has always been particularly fast on this track.
In seventh place is the best of the Aprilias, which surprisingly is that of Miguel Oliveira. The two official RS-GPs, in fact, are rather behind at the moment: Maverick Vinales is in 12th position, while Aleix Espargaro actually finds himself closing the group and probably seemed to be the one with the most problems of all in stopping the bike.
Eighth time then for Jack Miller, who precedes a trio of Ducatis that includes Enea Bastianini, Franco Morbidelli and Marco Bezzecchi. “The Beast” also had big difficulties at the beginning of the session, but then managed to find a step compared to Bagnaia, at least entering the top 10.
Moving on to the Japanese bikes, the best this time was a Honda, with Joan Mir who placed 13th at 1″2, just ahead of the Yamaha of Alex Rins. At the moment, however, it is too early to understand if the new features tested in the Misano tests could have brought a small step forward. Further back, however, are Fabio Quartararo and Luca Mrini, who are respectively in 18th and 19th position, both 1″7 behind.
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