It really was all about the action in the afternoon session on Friday at the MotoGP German Grand Prix, with no less than nine crashes, probably due to the rather low temperatures and rather cold wind, and even a red flag, caused by the explosion of an airfence.
Speaking of crashes, there has been a bit of a mystery surrounding Marc Marquez. The eight-time world champion crashed rather badly at the infamous “Waterfall”, the first downhill right-hander after a long left-hander, and initially it seemed as if he had not been hurt.
The Gresini Racing rider, in fact, immediately returned to the track and signed his 1’20″384. However, he later returned to the pits, showing severe pain in his side. For this reason he went to the medical center, where however fractures to the ribs were excluded and he was declared fit. His conditions will now have to be reassessed tomorrow morning, because it seems that he has a small fracture to a finger on his left hand, but what is certain is that if he gets back on his Ducati, he will have to go through Q1, given that in the end he finished 13th.
Moving on to the sporting aspect, the Aprilias stood out in particular, with Maverick Vinales setting a new Sachsenring record with a time of 1’19″622. But the competitiveness of the RS-GP was also confirmed by the third time of Miguel Oliveira who finally made a move after a very complicated start to the season: the Portuguese finished 362 thousandths behind the Spaniard.
Between the two bikes from Noale, the world championship leader Jorge Martin, last year the author of a double on the German ups and downs and today the first of the Ducatis, slipped in, who in turn, however, cashed in a gap of over 340 thousandths compared to Vinales. Even if the Aprilias are in front, the Desmosedici GPs still defended themselves well, because there are six of them that have scored the pass for Q2.
The fourth fastest time was set by Alex Marquez’s GP23, who left in line the GP24 trio composed of the reigning champion Pecco Bagnaia, who had to abort a couple of attempts towards the end due to the yellow flags, Enea Bastianini, who also fell quite badly but without consequences at the “Waterfall”, and Franco Morbidelli.
Despite a crash at Turn 1, Pedro Acosta was the best of the KTM riders, finishing eighth in his final weekend of trying to become the youngest ever MotoGP race winner. Fabio Di Giannantonio also crashed at the same point and it was he who caused the red flag, as his Desmosedici GP clipped the air fences after violently hitting the barriers.
Among other things, the Roman rider seemed to be in a lot of pain in his collarbone immediately after the accident and in fact he went to the medical centre for a check-up, which also in his case ruled out the presence of fractures. And in fact shortly after he was back on his GP23 and also managed to earn himself Q2 with the ninth time in 1’20″280.
The list of riders who qualified for Q2 is completed by the other KTM of Brad Binder, who beat his teammate Jack Miller by just a thousandth of a second, first of the excluded ahead of the Aprilia Trackhouse of Raul Fernandez. The yellow flags then also ruined the plans of Fabio Quartararo, 14th just a tenth from the top 10, who had to give up a lap that probably would have qualified his Yamaha.
The best Honda was Johann Zarco, who set the 16th fastest time, just ahead of Luca Marini, and who also fell at turn 13. Marco Bezzecchi had a decidedly negative afternoon, starting the session with a bad fall at the “Waterfall”, from which he recovered without consequences. However, he was unable to do better than the 19th fastest time at the end.
The list of riders who ended up with their wheels in the air also includes Augusto Fernandez, Takaaki Nakagami and Remy Gardner, who returned to MotoGP this weekend to replace the injured Alex Rins on the factory Yamaha. Finally, it is worth mentioning the absence on the track of Aleix Espargaro: the Aprilia rider arrived at the Sachsenring with a fracture to his right hand and tried to take to the track in FP1, but threw in the towel because the pain was too much.
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