The Spaniard was the fastest in Thailand, rolling 32 thousandths of a second faster than Quartararo
The one from Cervera went to the ground at the beginning of the session, but the fall had no consequences
The Spanish Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda RC 213 V) did it again, this time on completely dry asphalt and despite a crash without consequences at the beginning of the session, he achieved the Best time in the initial round of Thailand Grand Prix Free Trials of MotoGP at the ‘Chang International’ circuit in Buriram. Márquez set the best time in the queen category in 1:30.523, with 32 thousandths of a second ahead about the world champion fabio quartararo65 with respect to Australian Jack Miller (Ducati Desmosedici GP22), 98 thousandths over Italian Luca Marini (Ducati Desmosedici GP22), and 118 thousandths with Spaniard Alex Rins (Suzuki GSX RR).
It didn’t take long for the first news of the day to come out at turn three, because at that point and when the MotoGP riders had barely completed three laps Spaniard Marc Márquez crashed (Repsol Honda RC 213 V), who lost the front end of his motorcycle and although he managed to control it at first, when he left the wet area of the track he was no longer able to avoid the mishap. It was a clean crash and without major consequences, which did not prevent the pilot from returning to the workshop on top of it and returning to the track in just a few minutes to recover positions on his seventh lap and move up to seventh place.
At that time, the initial leader of the session was Frenchman Johann Zarco (Ducati Desmosedici GP22) and the track was completely dry along the lines of the bikes’ trajectories, but very waterlogged on the outside. The Portuguese Miguel Oliveira (KTM RC 16) was the next victim of the Thai track, in his case at turn twelve and, as happened with Marc Márquez, without major consequences. Meanwhile, on the track and with Zarco as a reference, his compatriot Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha YZR M 1), current leader of the championship and world title holder of the category, was placed behind him at 54 thousandths of a second and both were surpassed by the Italian Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia (Ducati Desmosedici GP22), with just 15 thousandths of a second ahead of Zarco’s record.
But it did not take long for Zarco to regain first place, on a circuit where he seems to feel very inspired and on his twelfth lap he returned to the top of the table with 23 thousandths of an advance (1:31.504) over Bagnaia. Fully involved in the last quarter of the session, the strategy of practically all the drivers was to mount a new soft tire behind to try a ‘time attack’ in the face of the real possibility that the rest of the free practice sessions would be held on wet asphalt due to The rain. The first to surprise with his performance was the Australian Remy Gardner (KTM RC 16), who climbed to second position just 18 thousandths of a second behind Zarco, but after him, all the riders were lowering the best times in the category according to They passed the finish line. And again the surprise jumped when the Repsol Honda rider took the lead with a time of 1:30.523 with which he beat Fabio Quartararo by just 32 thousandths of a second and Alex Rins (Suzuki GSX RR) by 118 who placed first once in the whole session in the leading positions, although with the drop of the checkered flag there was some change in the leading positions. The Spaniard Jorge Martín (Ducati Desmosedici GP22) made the cut in the classification, being tenth, with his teammate Johann Zarco, who had led much of the session in twelfth, Pol Espargaró (Repsol Honda RC 213 V), fourteenth, Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia RS-GP), sixteenth, ahead of his teammate at the Noale factory, Maverick Viñales.
Rising to the challenge of replacing injured 2020 world champion Joan Mir of Spain on the Suzuki GSX RR, Italian Danilo Petrucci finished in 22nd place. A logical result for a rider who is more accustomed to the performance of engines with their V-shaped cylinders instead of the more classic inline four, which is used only by Suzuki and Yamaha in the world championship, although the natural sportsman of the The town of Rimini, on the Adriatic coast, is a great specialist in adapting to any type of situation, since in the current season he has done the Dakar with KTM, he has ridden in the American championship with a Ducati and now he does it with the Japanese Suzuki in MotoGP.