Binder leads the way in opening Spanish MotoGP practice

Brad Binder came out the blocks the best early for KTM in opening practice for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez as he headed Aleix Espargaro by nearly two-tenths.

The South African languished towards the foot of the times for much of the session along with his fellow KTM pilots, Danilo Petrucci the lead RC16 for the majority of the test hovering around the top 15 on his Tech 3-run example.

Miguel Oliveira though opened the flood gates as the session entered its final stanza as he manoeuvred his factory KTM into fourth, though was swiftly dropped to fifth as Binder edged his team-mate to grab third.

He wasn’t done just yet though as he gunned for Aleix’s leading benchmark, the Aprilia man having led the way for most of the session after moving to the head of the timesheets after the opening flurry of times.

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Binder’s final tour looked competitive from the outset, though a super final sector ultimately secured him the top spot by a relatively commanding 0.191s, denying Aprilia and Aleix at the death.

The RS-GP racer was therefore limited to second ahead of an ever-improving Marc Marquez for Honda, while Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia and Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo made it five different manufacturer’s in the top five positions.

Johann Zarco was sixth overall on his Pramac-operated Ducati ahead of Oliveira, while Pol Espargaro was eighth fastest on the second factory Honda RC213-V.

Maverick Vinales bagged ninth on the leaderboard as the opening session of the weekend at Jerez came to a close just ahead of Joan Mir, the reigning MotoGP world champion having a tricky session that saw him unable to set a time prior to the half-way mark due to a minor issue with his Suzuki.  

He was able to bang in several fast laps towards the end though and salvage the final place within the top ten just ahead of LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami, the Japanese racer looking good for a top three time at the end before running wide at the final bend.

Franco Morbidelli spent most of the session in the top five but dropped back towards the end, while a near-crash for Lorenzo Savadori as his Aprilia snaked through Turn 11 denied him a solid run into the top ten, though 13^th was still a good improvement relative to recent outings for the Italian.

Jack Miller started the Spanish event off rather anonymously down in 17^th-albeit just 0.858s from the peak of the times- while Valentino Rossi’s tough start to 2021 continued as he struggled to 20^th marginally ahead of Pramac’s Tito Rabat, the ex-Avintia man replacing the injured Jorge Martin for this contest.