Andrea Dovizioso led first free practice for Ducati as MotoGP returned from its summer break for the Czech GP at Brno, the Italian heading Marc Marquez at the top.
Marquez led for most of the session as the only man who managed to lap underneath the 1:57 bracket, the Spaniard posting a 1:56.948 to lead Jack Miller’s Pramac-run Ducati and Dovizioso.
He looked set to end the session fastest, before Dovizioso snatched the top spot with just seconds to go by just 0.029s, forcing Marquez to be content with second.
Two other riders managed laps within a tenth of Dovizioso’s benchmark, Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales was just 0.063 behind in third while Miguel Oliveira set a superb time on his Tech 3 KTM RC16 to lap just 0.099 slower than the Ducati for fourth in the session.
Another standout performance rounded out the top five, as Suzuki wild-card and test rider Sylvain Guintoli managed to slot his GSX-RR in fifth, just under half-a-second off the pace, as was Jack Miller just behind in sixth.
Hafizh Syahrin made it both Tech 3 machines in the top seven just a few hundredths clear of Franco Morbidelli, while Alex Rins and Valentino Rossi closed out the top ten runners for Suzuki and Yamaha respectively.
Fabio Quartararo was unusually far down the time sheets, the Petronas SRT pilot way back in 18th as he struggled to set a competitive lap, while Danilo Petrucci and Cal Crutchlow also struggled in 13th and 15th positions respectively.
Only one rider went down during the 45-minute session, the Pramac Ducati GP18 of Francesco Bagnaia. The Italian tucked the front of his Desmosedici at the medium-speed Turn 13, sliding into the gravel as a result with around a quarter of the session remaining.
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