Marco Bezzecchi dominated the opening practice session at Assen for the Dutch TT by over three-tenths-of-a-second ahead of Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales.
Bezzecchi came out firing on all cylinders from the very start of the outing as he led the field on a 1:33.585s, an effort he would continue to etch away at as the session progressed – the Italian not allowing anyone else a look in.
He breached the 1:33s threshold at around the mid-point of the test before finding more time still during the session’s climax, the VR46 Ducati ace in the end posting a 1:32.246s gambit – an effort faster than the Dutch TT race record which at the time left him over half-a-second faster than anyone else.
Vinales managed to trim Bezzecchi’s advantage to 0.314s by the end as he secured the second-quickest time on his Aprilia RS-GP, while Alex Marquez completed FP1 as the third fastest rider for Gresini.
Johann Zarco was fourth for Pramac Ducati despite a high-speed crash at turn 15 in the latter part of the session, the Frenchman narrowly heading countryman and Yamaha racer Fabio Quartararo, who completed the top five.
The other VR46 entry of Luca Marini was sixth overall ahead of LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami, while German GP victor Jorge Martin was eighth on his Pramac Ducati.
Jack Miller was KTM’s highest representative in ninth, while Aleix Espargaro rounded off the top ten on his Aprilia.
Reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia struggled to post a strong time towards the end and had to make do with 12th on the timesheets just ahead of Augusto Fernandez, the Spaniard the first rider to fall victim to the Assen venue after going down at Turn 10 early on – an error later repeated by Enea Bastianini.
Miguel Oliveira also suffered a crash during the session, the RNF Aprilia pilot coming unstuck at Turn 1 as he tried to improve on his eventual 15th-position classification.
Stefan Bradl was 19th on his LCR Honda – the German standing in for the injured Alex Rins this weekend – while factory Honda duo Marc Marquez and Iker Lecuona – the latter replacing Joan Mir for this event – laid down in 21st and 22nd respectively.
