Practice report
MotoGP German GP
Sachsenring MotoGP: Espargaro leads red-flagged warm-up
KTM MotoGP rider Pol Espargaro topped Sunday morning's warm-up session for the German Grand Prix, which was interrupted by a major crash for his brother Aleix.
Jamie Klein
Edited: Jul 15, 2018, 8:53 AM
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The elder of the Espargaro brothers had just knocked Jorge Lorenzo off the top of the times when he suffered a big off at Sachsenring's Turn 4 left-hander seven minutes into the session.
He hit the air-fence with speed, and while able to walk away, the Aprilia rider looked to be in pain as he was taken to the medical centre, having reportedly suffered a blow to his ribs.
After a brief delay to repair the barrier, poleman Marc Marquez bettered Espargaro's time to go quickest with a 1m21.397s, with Pol soon moving up to second, a tenth behind.
The KTM man then lowered the bar to a 1m21.230s to end the 20-minute session fastest, 0.167s ahead of Honda man Marquez.
Andrea Dovizioso left it late to move up to third on the best of the Ducatis, demoting the satellite Nieto machine of Alvaro Bautista down to fourth.
Aleix Espargaro's best time was good enough for fifth despite his crash, ahead of Andrea Iannone on the lead Suzuki and Lorenzo.
Yamaha pair Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales and the leading LCR Honda of Takaaki Nakagami completed the top 10, the latter just edging out the second works bike of Dani Pedrosa.
Nakagami's teammate Cal Crutchlow could do more than 16th, a little under a second off the pace.
Warm-up results:
Pos.#RiderBikeTimeGap 1 44 
Pol Espargaro KTM 1'21.230 2 93 Marc Marquez Honda 1'21.397 0.167 3 4 
Andrea Dovizioso Ducati 1'21.463 0.233 4 19 Alvaro Bautista Ducati 1'21.529 0.299 5 41 Aleix Espargaro Aprilia 1'21.546 0.316 6 29 Andrea Iannone Suzuki 1'21.563 0.333 7 99 Jorge Lorenzo Ducati 1'21.567 0.337 8 46 Valentino Rossi Yamaha 1'21.577 0.347 9 25 Maverick Viñales Yamaha 1'21.614 0.384 10 30 
Takaaki Nakagami Honda 1'21.847 0.617 11 26 Dani Pedrosa Honda 1'21.868 0.638 12 42 Alex Rins Suzuki 1'21.878 0.648 13 38 
Bradley Smith KTM 1'21.920 0.690 14 45 Scott Redding Aprilia 1'21.999 0.769 15 55 
Hafizh Syahrin Yamaha 1'22.100 0.870 16 35 Cal Crutchlow Honda 1'22.158 0.928 17 43 
Jack Miller Ducati 1'22.190 0.960 18 5 
Johann Zarco Yamaha 1'22.192 0.962 19 12 
Thomas Luthi Honda 1'22.404 1.174 20 53 Tito Rabat Ducati 1'22.425 1.195 21 6 
Stefan Bradl Honda 1'22.430 1.200 22 9 Danilo Petrucci Ducati 1'22.526 1.296 23 17 
Karel Abraham Ducati 1'22.575 1.345 24 10 
Xavier Simeon Ducati 1'23.151 1.921
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