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Practice report

Portuguese MotoGP: Vinales fastest in FP1, Marquez third

Maverick Vinales led opening practice for the MotoGP Portuguese Grand Prix as Marc Marquez completed the top three on his return to action following a nine-month injury layoff.

Maverick Vinales, Yamaha Factory Racing

Maverick Vinales, Yamaha Factory Racing

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Friday’s FP1 in Portugal marked the first time in 265 days six-time world champion Marc Marquez started an official MotoGP session, having suffered a serious arm break in the 2020 season-opener at Jerez.

Overnight rain left the Algarve circuit damp in places, which meant lap times started at around 15 seconds slower than the benchmark laps from last year.

As conditions continued to improve, so did the session-best laps, with a number of riders taking turns leading the timesheets.

Yamaha’s Vinales took over from reigning world champion Joan Mir with 16 minutes to go with a 1m44.777s, which he improved on his following tour to a 1m44.334s.

Francesco Bagnaia moved his factory Ducati ahead of the Qatar GP race winner with a 1m44.239s moments later, before Vinales dipped under the 1m44s bracket with a 1m43.544s.

The timing screen continued to light up as the opening 45-minute session of the weekend drew to a close, the returning Marquez serving a brief stint at the top of the pile with a 1m43.544s.

The Honda rider remained fastest for all of 10 seconds, before Bagnaia blasted his effort away with a 1m42.934s.

Amidst the flurry of laps at the end of the session, Marquez looked set to steal all the headlines when he shot back to the top of the order with a 1m42.378s on his final effort.

But faster laps for both Suzuki’s Alex Rins and Vinales denied this, the Yamaha rider setting the pace at 1m42.127s to lead Rins by 0.151s.

Marquez held onto third, 0.251s off Vinales’ pace ahead of Honda teammate Pol Espargaro, while championship leader Johann Zarco was fifth on his Pramac Ducati.

Bagnaia was shuffled back to sixth at the end ahead of Fabio Quartararo on the sister works Yamaha and Jack Miller on second factory team Ducati – the Australian fresh from arm pump surgery last week.

Alex Marquez was ninth on the LCR Honda ahead of Tech 3 KTM’s Danilo Petrucci, who revealed on Thursday he suffered a dislocated shoulder last month in Qatar.

Valentino Rossi was 11th on the Petronas SRT Yamaha, while champion Mir was 13th ahead of the other SRT bike of Franco Morbidelli.

Last year’s Portugal race winner Miguel Oliveira made a low-key start to his home weekend in the iffy conditions down in 17th on the factory team KTM, while teammate Brad Binder rounded out the 22-strong field.

FP2 will get underway at 2:10pm local time.

Practice results:

Cla # Rider Bike Time Gap
1 12 Spain Maverick Viñales
Yamaha 1'42.127
2 42 Spain Alex Rins
Suzuki 1'42.278 0.151
3 93 Spain Marc Marquez
Honda 1'42.378 0.251
4 44 Spain Pol Espargaro
Honda 1'42.382 0.255
5 5 France Johann Zarco
Ducati 1'42.443 0.316
6 63 Italy Francesco Bagnaia
Ducati 1'42.464 0.337
7 20 France Fabio Quartararo
Yamaha 1'42.528 0.401
8 43 Australia Jack Miller
Ducati 1'42.536 0.409
9 73 Spain Alex Marquez
Honda 1'42.781 0.654
10 9 Italy Danilo Petrucci
KTM 1'42.957 0.830
11 46 Italy Valentino Rossi
Yamaha 1'43.013 0.886
12 30 Japan Takaaki Nakagami
Honda 1'43.036 0.909
13 36 Spain Joan Mir
Suzuki 1'43.060 0.933
14 21 Italy Franco Morbidelli
Yamaha 1'43.243 1.116
15 32 Italy Lorenzo Savadori
Aprilia 1'43.539 1.412
16 89 Spain Jorge Martin
Ducati 1'43.702 1.575
17 88 Portugal Miguel Oliveira
KTM 1'44.000 1.873
18 10 Italy Luca Marini
Ducati 1'44.602 2.475
19 27 Spain Iker Lecuona
KTM 1'44.967 2.840
20 23 Italy Enea Bastianini
Ducati 1'45.325 3.198
21 41 Spain Aleix Espargaro
Aprilia 1'45.335 3.208
22 33 South Africa Brad Binder
KTM 1'47.774 5.647

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