Everyone was expecting Marc Marquez, but the MotoGP German Grand Prix weekend opened with Jorge Martin in the spotlight. In all fairness, it must be said that as long as everyone was riding on the medium tire, the eight-time world champion reaffirmed his status as the king of the Sachnsenring, where he won 11 times across all classes, then the Prima Pramac Racing rider mounted a pair of new soft tires to take the lead.
The rider from Madrid, who had a rather troubled session, first ending up long in the gravel at turn 8 and then having to deal with the airbag in his suit opening for no real reason, still stopped the clock at 1’20″584, 150 thousandths ahead of the Gresini Racing rider.
As mentioned, the #93 obtained his 1’20″734 with the same medium rear tyre with which he started the session and also in terms of pace he gave the impression of having a significant margin over the competition. The German ups and downs, therefore, could really be the fertile ground for his first victory branded Ducati, even if in the final he also ran into a slip without particular consequences at turn 1, a banal front lock.
In third and fourth place we then find two Aprilias, with Maverick Vinales and a revived Miguel Oliveira who fitted a new medium rear tyre towards the end to climb the standings in the final stages: the Spaniard has thus reduced his gap from the top to less than three tenths, while the Portuguese is already paying more than half a second in fourth position.
Pedro Acosta also fitted a new rear medium at the end to set the fifth fastest time of 1’21″151. The curious thing is that the twin GasGas Tech3 of Augusto Fernandez set the same time to the thousandth of a second as his teammate, who once again however ended his session in the gravel of the escape road, with a crash that came almost at the end of the race. Among other things, it should be remembered that for the reigning Moto2 world champion this is the last chance to try to beat Marquez’s record and become the youngest rider to have won a MotoGP GP.
Next up was a trio of Ducatis, with the two factory GP24s of Enea Bastianini and Pecco Bagnaia sandwiching Alex Marquez’s GP23, all three continuing on the same set of tyres until the end of the session. After three consecutive victories, the reigning world champion’s start to the weekend was less brilliant than usual, with some difficulty stopping his Desmosedici GP, which he seemed to have partially resolved in the final run of the session.
Rounding out the top 10 is the other Aprilia of Raul Fernandez, tenth with a new rear medium tire in the finale. And continuing to talk about the Noale manufacturer, unfortunately we must point out that Aleix Espargaro tried, but decided to stop: the rider from Granollers arrived in Germany with a fracture to his right hand, but the pain was too much, so he threw in the towel after completing just three laps with a gap of over 10 seconds.
It wasn’t a great session for the two official KTMs, with Jack Miller occupying 11th position and Brad Binder instead in 15th. Ahead of him are the two Ducatis of Marco Bezzecchi and Franco Morbidelli, in addition to the Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo which is the first of the Japanese bikes, but this time too it was over a second behind despite the new engine introduced on the M1 in Assen. In his box, thanks to the absence of the injured Alex Rins, there is the return of the son of art Remy Gardner, who is 22nd at 2″3, but he must be excused given that he hasn’t raced in MotoGP since 2022 and had never ridden the Yamaha.
To find the first of the Hondas, you have to go down to 17th position occupied by Takaaki Nakagami, behind also the market man Fabio Di Giannantonio, who however also continued with used rubber on his Ducati of Pertamina Enduro VR46. The picture of the Italian riders then ends with Luca Marini, who with the 19th time at least put himself behind the other two RC213V of the test rider Stefan Bradl and his teammate Joan Mir.
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