Marc Marquez led the way in opening practice for the Aragon Grand Prix by nearly a second over the rest of the field after a late qualifying simulation.
The Honda rider established himself at the peak of the timesheets early on with a 1:49.171s tour to put himself just clear of fellow RC213-V pilot Takaaki Nakagami, the Japanese machine seemingly once again gelling well with the Motorland Aragon venue following its strong outings last year.
Marquez’s time remained the one to beat across the bulk of the 45 minute test, though Suzuki’s Joan Mir managed to fire in a decent improvement to lift himself up to second overall-albeit a few tenths adrift of the leader.
The six-time premier class champion though went in a different direction of the rest of the field in choosing a soft compound rear tyre in the closing minutes of the session in order to stage a full qualifying simulation, Marquez banging in a stunning 1:48.048s to leave him a commanding 0.971s clear of Mir.
Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia posted a late series of strong efforts that would ultimately leave him third as the first man over a second down on Marquez, with 2020 Aragon rostrum man Alex Marquez on his LCR Honda fourth ahead of the second official Desmosedici of Jack Miller.
Aleix Espargaro was sixth for Aprilia as he embarks on his quest to bag a second straight podium after grabbing third at Silverstone last time out, while Johann Zarco and series leader Fabio Quartararo managed the seventh and eighth best times.
Nakagami ended up ninth in the end while the other factory Honda of Pol Espargaro completed the top ten.
Enea Bastinaini was fastest rookie in 11th for Avintia ahead of the other factory Yamaha of Cal Crutchlow, with British GP rostrum getter Alex Rins only 14th to start the weekend as he looks to repeat the victory he scored at Aragon 12 months ago.
Maverick Vinales meanwhile focussed on trying to learn his new RS-GP steed as he racked up the laps, the Spaniard ending up a reasonable 19th just over two seconds down on Marquez and just shy of a second adrift of team-mate Espargaro.
This also left him just ahead of Valentino Rossi, KTM’s Brad Binder and Jake Dixon on the leaderboard-the Brit continuing to progress on his own learning exercise in what is his second ever MotoGP event on Petronas SRT’s Yamaha.
Iker Lecuona was 16th following his impressive run to seventh at Silverstone two weeks ago, the Andorran suffering a high-speed crash at the final bend in the early stages, though he walked away without injury and rejoined the action later.
Rossi was the only other rider to suffer a spill, the Italian touching the kerb on the exit of Turn 5 towards the latter part of the session and losing the front of his M1-though he also walked away and swiftly returned to the pits.
