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Alex Marquez blitzes the field in Spanish MotoGP Practice
Alex Marquez was comfortably fastest in Practice at the Spanish MotoGP.
Alex Marquez was fastest by a comfortable margin in Spanish MotoGP Practice, the Spaniard looking back to the kind of form that won him the Jerez race in 2025.
Marquez downplayed his chances of repeating his Jerez win from a year ago during the pre-event press conference on Thursday, but on Friday afternoon he was practically untouchable at the top of the times.
Fabio Di Giannantonio led the session early on and had been the first rider of the weekend into the 1m36s in FP1, but he had now answers for Alex Marquez once the Gresini Racing rider bolted on some fresh tyres for his time attacks at the end of Practice.
Marquez would be the only rider to lap in the 1m36s in MotoGP Practice, and that put him over 0.3 seconds clear of Di Giannantonio in second.
To Di Giannantonio’s credit, he was the only rider to lap within half-a-second of Marquez, the VR46 Racing Team rider beating championship leader Marco Bezzecchi and reigning champion Marc Marquez in the Friday afternoon times.
Although Bezzecchi didn’t have the headline time, his session was solid enough, certainly more convincing than he was in Brazil, for example, where he won regardless. We’ve seen multiple times since the middle of 2025 Bezzecchi and Aprilia find substantial lap time overnight from Friday to Saturday, or even Saturday to Sunday, and given his 0.5-second deficit to Marquez it looks like the same will be needed in Jerez if he is to continue his winning streak that currently stands at five races.
As for Marc Marquez, his physical condition has been to blame for his relative underperformance so far in 2026, so after a month off you could have been forgiven for thinking he would arrive in Jerez refreshed and recharged, and dominate the weekend from start-to-finish. That hasn’t happened yet, but he is in the picture.
Marquez’s teammate, Francesco Bagnaia started the session by crashing at turn one. He locked the front under braking for the first turn on his opening timed lap of the session. That left him with one bike for the remainder of Practice, but it was enough for him to be able to put in a 1m36.265s lap to go sixth-fastest and move comfortably into Q2.
Ai Ogura and Raul Fernandez both made it into Q2, as well, in fifth and seventh, respectively, as did Jorge Martin in 10th. This confirms Aprilia’s pace this weekend, and for Ogura it marked a good step forward from FP1 when he was down on the edges of the top-20.
Martin might have been higher up the time sheets at the end of the session, but he crashed with 27 minutes to go at the final corner, locking the front in a straight line. He ran across the track to get back to pit lane, but did so with no approaching traffic, at least none that could be seen from the TV images.
Enea Bastianini was the last rider to make it into Q2 and was the only KTM rider to do so, as Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder languished in 15th and 16th, respectively. For Acosta, it was a session characterised by mistakes, especially in the hard braking zone of turn six.
There were no Japanese bikes in the top-10 in Practice, the best of those being Honda’s Joan Mir in 11th. Johann Zarco and Luca Marini were behind him in 12th and 13th, respectively, while Diogo Moreira was a bit further back in 19th.
For Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo was their best representative in 17th, one place and around 0.1 seconds ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu.
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Alex Marquez was comfortably fastest in Practice at the Spanish MotoGP.
Alex Marquez was fastest by a comfortable margin in Spanish MotoGP Practice, the Spaniard looking back to the kind of form that won him the Jerez race in 2025.
Marquez downplayed his chances of repeating his Jerez win from a year ago during the pre-event press conference on Thursday, but on Friday afternoon he was practically untouchable at the top of the times.
Fabio Di Giannantonio led the session early on and had been the first rider of the weekend into the 1m36s in FP1, but he had now answers for Alex Marquez once the Gresini Racing rider bolted on some fresh tyres for his time attacks at the end of Practice.
Marquez would be the only rider to lap in the 1m36s in MotoGP Practice, and that put him over 0.3 seconds clear of Di Giannantonio in second.
To Di Giannantonio’s credit, he was the only rider to lap within half-a-second of Marquez, the VR46 Racing Team rider beating championship leader Marco Bezzecchi and reigning champion Marc Marquez in the Friday afternoon times.
Although Bezzecchi didn’t have the headline time, his session was solid enough, certainly more convincing than he was in Brazil, for example, where he won regardless. We’ve seen multiple times since the middle of 2025 Bezzecchi and Aprilia find substantial lap time overnight from Friday to Saturday, or even Saturday to Sunday, and given his 0.5-second deficit to Marquez it looks like the same will be needed in Jerez if he is to continue his winning streak that currently stands at five races.
As for Marc Marquez, his physical condition has been to blame for his relative underperformance so far in 2026, so after a month off you could have been forgiven for thinking he would arrive in Jerez refreshed and recharged, and dominate the weekend from start-to-finish. That hasn’t happened yet, but he is in the picture.
Marquez’s teammate, Francesco Bagnaia started the session by crashing at turn one. He locked the front under braking for the first turn on his opening timed lap of the session. That left him with one bike for the remainder of Practice, but it was enough for him to be able to put in a 1m36.265s lap to go sixth-fastest and move comfortably into Q2.
Ai Ogura and Raul Fernandez both made it into Q2, as well, in fifth and seventh, respectively, as did Jorge Martin in 10th. This confirms Aprilia’s pace this weekend, and for Ogura it marked a good step forward from FP1 when he was down on the edges of the top-20.
Martin might have been higher up the time sheets at the end of the session, but he crashed with 27 minutes to go at the final corner, locking the front in a straight line. He ran across the track to get back to pit lane, but did so with no approaching traffic, at least none that could be seen from the TV images.
Enea Bastianini was the last rider to make it into Q2 and was the only KTM rider to do so, as Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder languished in 15th and 16th, respectively. For Acosta, it was a session characterised by mistakes, especially in the hard braking zone of turn six.
There were no Japanese bikes in the top-10 in Practice, the best of those being Honda’s Joan Mir in 11th. Johann Zarco and Luca Marini were behind him in 12th and 13th, respectively, while Diogo Moreira was a bit further back in 19th.
For Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo was their best representative in 17th, one place and around 0.1 seconds ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Alex Marquez was fastest by a comfortable margin in Spanish MotoGP Practice, the Spaniard looking back to the kind of form that won him the Jerez race in 2025.
Marquez downplayed his chances of repeating his Jerez win from a year ago during the pre-event press conference on Thursday, but on Friday afternoon he was practically untouchable at the top of the times.
Fabio Di Giannantonio led the session early on and had been the first rider of the weekend into the 1m36s in FP1, but he had now answers for Alex Marquez once the Gresini Racing rider bolted on some fresh tyres for his time attacks at the end of Practice.
Marquez would be the only rider to lap in the 1m36s in MotoGP Practice, and that put him over 0.3 seconds clear of Di Giannantonio in second.
To Di Giannantonio’s credit, he was the only rider to lap within half-a-second of Marquez, the VR46 Racing Team rider beating championship leader Marco Bezzecchi and reigning champion Marc Marquez in the Friday afternoon times.
Although Bezzecchi didn’t have the headline time, his session was solid enough, certainly more convincing than he was in Brazil, for example, where he won regardless. We’ve seen multiple times since the middle of 2025 Bezzecchi and Aprilia find substantial lap time overnight from Friday to Saturday, or even Saturday to Sunday, and given his 0.5-second deficit to Marquez it looks like the same will be needed in Jerez if he is to continue his winning streak that currently stands at five races.
As for Marc Marquez, his physical condition has been to blame for his relative underperformance so far in 2026, so after a month off you could have been forgiven for thinking he would arrive in Jerez refreshed and recharged, and dominate the weekend from start-to-finish. That hasn’t happened yet, but he is in the picture.
Marquez’s teammate, Francesco Bagnaia started the session by crashing at turn one. He locked the front under braking for the first turn on his opening timed lap of the session. That left him with one bike for the remainder of Practice, but it was enough for him to be able to put in a 1m36.265s lap to go sixth-fastest and move comfortably into Q2.
Ai Ogura and Raul Fernandez both made it into Q2, as well, in fifth and seventh, respectively, as did Jorge Martin in 10th. This confirms Aprilia’s pace this weekend, and for Ogura it marked a good step forward from FP1 when he was down on the edges of the top-20.
Martin might have been higher up the time sheets at the end of the session, but he crashed with 27 minutes to go at the final corner, locking the front in a straight line. He ran across the track to get back to pit lane, but did so with no approaching traffic, at least none that could be seen from the TV images.
Enea Bastianini was the last rider to make it into Q2 and was the only KTM rider to do so, as Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder languished in 15th and 16th, respectively. For Acosta, it was a session characterised by mistakes, especially in the hard braking zone of turn six.
There were no Japanese bikes in the top-10 in Practice, the best of those being Honda’s Joan Mir in 11th. Johann Zarco and Luca Marini were behind him in 12th and 13th, respectively, while Diogo Moreira was a bit further back in 19th.
For Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo was their best representative in 17th, one place and around 0.1 seconds ahead of Toprak Razgatlioglu.
[analyse_source url=”http://crash.net/motogp/news/1093409/1/alex-marquez-blitzes-field-spanish-motogp-practice”]