Marquez tops opening MotoGP test session

Marquez under race lap record

MotoGP riders hit the track for the first time in what seems like a year from 1800 (AEST) this evening at Jerez and it was defending World Champion Marc Marquez at the top of the time-sheets after the opening 90-minute session.

Jack Miller was in P2 for the first half hour of proceedings but the 25-year-old Aussie then went to the top of the timesheets just before the halfway point of the 90-minute session.

Franco Morbidelli had been consistently fast for the majority of the session and the 25-year-old Italian pushed Marc Marquez back to P3 as the opening timed practice entered its final half-hour.

Fabio Quartararo then picked up his pace as the session wore on to move up to third before Joan Mir pushed Marquez further back to fifth with just over 20-minutes remaining in the session.

Aleix Espargaro showed encouraging pace throughout the session on the new Aprilia but stepped it up a gear in the dying minutes to move up to P3, albeit briefly as Marquez then got serious and moved back up to P2 before then immediately putting in another flyer to go top of the charts, a 1m37.941s undercutting Miller’s 1m38.348s by four-tenths of a second.

With less than five minutes to go it was Marquez in P1 ahead of Miller, Aleix Espargaro in P3, Franco Morbidelli P4 and Fabio Quartararo P5. All the heavy hitters were on track apart from Miller, the Aussie seeemd content to sit out the end of the session.

A minute later Aleix Espargaro improved his marker to promote himself and Aprilia up in to P2 while Quartararo then pushed Morbidelli back to P5.

Cal Crutchlow then came from nowhere to drop in a 1m38.313 to go P3, pushing Miller back to P4 and Rins then slotted the Suzuki into P5 and Valentino Rossi came into the game at P6.

Rins then immediately improved further to go P2 before Rossi then came across the line to go P3. Quartararo then eclipsed Crutchlow to go P5.

When the clock stopped it was still Marquez on top from Rins and Rossi third.

Aleix Espargaro showed consistent fast pace on the Aprilia for P4 ahead of Quartararo and Crutchlow while early pace-setter Miller was relegated to P7 after he sat out the final part of the session but remained the top ranked Ducati.

Miguel Oliveira was the fastest KTM rider in an encouraging P8 ahead of Franco Morbidelli while Pecco Bagnaia rounded out the top ten.

Andrea Dovizioso made a slow start to the day but then put in a lot more laps in the second half of the session. The Italian is recovering from shoulder injuries he sustained during a motocross accident a couple of weeks ago that required surgery and finished the day in P19.

Riders will be back on track at 2200 (AEST) tonight for another 90-minute session to conclude the final test before they hit the track again at 1755 (AEST) Friday night for FP1 of the race weekend. The 25-lap race is scheduled to get underway at 2200 (AEST) on Sunday night.

The all time lap record at Jerez is held by Fabio Quartararo with which he scored pole position from in 2019 at 1m36.880s on his Petronas Yamaha, while the best race lap was recorded by race winner Marc Marquez that same weekend at 1m38.051s on the Repsol Honda. The highest MotoGP top speed recorded was 295.9 km/h by Andrea Iannone in 2015 on a Ducati.

MotoGP Test Session One Results

2020 Jerez MotoGP Schedule (AEST)