Italian rider Francesco Bagnaia, known as Pecco Bagnaia, set a new Sachsenring circuit record and posted the fastest time in the first MotoGP free practice session of the German Grand Prix aboard his Ducati Desmosedici GP22.
Bagnaia stopped the clock at 1:20.018, eclipsing the previous benchmark held by Marc Márquez, the Repsol Honda rider who has dominated many MotoGP sessions since 2019. Márquez’s best at Sachsenring had stood since 2013, when he clocked 1:20.195. The dawn session delivered a dramatic sequence of rapid laps as Ducati teammates and rivals chased the early pace-setting times.
The day unfolded like a racer’s reel: Bagnaia stitched together a series of swift laps, closely followed by his Ducati teammates Luca Marini and Jack Miller from Australia, with Aleix Espargaró on the first non-Ducati pace in fourth place aboard an Aprilia RS-GP.
In contrast to other classes, MotoGP riders wasted little time shedding the day’s best times. The initial leader came from Aleix Espargaró, who posted a 1:20.789, while Bagnaia seized the top spot with a narrow margin, just 54 thousandths of a second ahead. Pol Espargaró, carrying some bruising from a morning crash, faced a tougher start. Alex Rins, dealing with a sore left hand after a Catalonia crash, struggled early but didn’t stay down for long.
Rins surprised many by climbing to third in the session’s final stretch, posting a 1:21.025, just 0.236 seconds behind Aleix Espargaró, who remained the benchmark for much of the hour. Rins viewed teammate Maverick Viñales as a strong rival in the mix, and Viñales eventually found himself in the top echelon with a newly redesigned fairing on his bike. Joan Mir, the 2020 MotoGP world champion, hovered in the group with a late push, briefly vaulting into the top times before the field kept shifting as the session wore on. Mir finished within striking distance of the leaders, closely pursued by rivals who kept pressuring the dynamics at the Sachsenring.
Jack Miller’s speed placed him in the early lead at 1:20.211, but Bagnaia swiftly reclaimed the top position and improved it twice, culminating in the new best time of 1:20.018. With Bagnaia leading the charge, Marini and Miller filled the podium positions, while Aleix Espargaró trailed by about two tenths. France’s Johann Zarco and Spain’s Jorge Martín, both piloting Ducati Desmosedici GP22 machines, sat just behind, followed by Fabio Quartararo on the Yamaha YZR-M1 and Maverick Viñales on an Aprilia RS-GP. Further down the order, Danilo Petrucci’s absence was noted as the session moved into more competitive territory for the second classification, with Álex Rins still within half a second of Bagnaia’s mark as the session progressed. The field remained tight, and the evolving times reflected the evolving performance windows as teams gathered essential data for qualifying strategy.
Honda riders found the first direct classification more challenging. No rider among the Japanese squad cracked the top tier in this opening sprint, with Takaaki Nakagami posting the twelfth best time despite feeling under the weather after a heavy crash in Catalonia. Pol Espargaró stood fourteenth, and Alex Márquez finished eighteenth as the afternoon’s results continued to shuffle before the final running order of the day’s practice was set.
Fernandez rules on Moto2
In Moto2, Spanish rider Augusto Fernández, riding a Kalex, maintained the pole position he began the day with. He kept a firm grip on the top spot, finishing the second session with a best lap of 1:24.023, a pace that left little margin for his rivals in the late stages of the practice. Pedro Acosta, another Spaniard, and Fermín Aldeguer were close behind in the mix, both pushing hard and flagging the intense competition that marked the Sachsenring rounds. Fernández’s effort signaled a strong statement as the Sachsenring test wrapped up, highlighting the close competition typical of Moto2.
Alonso López, who had stepped in for Luca Boscoscuro in the transalpine team, had shown promise by finishing second fastest in the first session at Sachsenring. Yet, he couldn’t sustain the momentum, slipping from second to eighth in the later part of the day. The overall trend across Moto2 echoed the shifting sands of practice sessions—swift laps, tight margins, and a constant push for improvement as riders chase the knowledge needed for the crucial upcoming sessions.