Nakagami leads the way in opening Brno MotoGP practice

Takaaki Nakagami continued to display the rich vein of form he found at Jerez to head the field in first practice for the Czech MotoGP event at Brno.

The LCR man fired to the top of the times with a late flyer, deposing the leading Suzuki of Joan Mir by just 0.011.

Mir looked to have something to come back at the Japanese though, with a half-a-tenth improvement half-way round his final effort promising much.

He ultimately lost time and lapped slower than his previous best, letting Nakagami off the hook and securing him his third fastest practice time in the last five sessions.

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Pol Espargaro led the bulk of the session for KTM, but elected to not head out for a final qualifying simulation at the end and dropped to third behind the Honda and Suzuki machines-albeit just 0.039 from the top spot.

Fourth went the way of Johann Zarco on the fastest of the Ducati Desmosedici’s, his Avintia-run GP19 heading Maverick Vinales on the first of the M1 Yamaha’s.

Vinales was the first man to taste the Czech gravel after tucking the front of his M1 at Turn 13 just a few minutes after the green flag waved on the session, the bike rolling into the wall at a relatively slow speed.

Andrea Dovizioso flew the flag for the factory Ducati outfit in sixth just ahead of team-mate Danilo Petrucci, while Valentino made the best of his own late push lap to bag eighth in this session.

Franco Morbidelli managed ninth, while Cal Crutchlow completed the top ten thanks to his much improved broken wrist after his struggles at Jerez a fortnight ago-the top ten covered by a slender four-tenths of a second.

Aleix Espargaro was a solid 11^th on his Aprilia, heading several big names that decided to keep a low profile early on in the Czech weekend.

Alex Rins was the first of these in 12^th as he continues to recover from an injured shoulder, with double Jerez winner Fabio Quartararo next up in 13^th-while Pramac pairing Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia followed in 14^th and 15^th respectively.

Bagnaia was the only other rider to hit trouble during FP1, the Italian going down at Turn 1 in the closing stages while pushing for a position higher up the timesheets.

Brad Binder lost out on a top ten showing by virtue of having his lap deleted for track limits, dropping him to 16^th.

The factory Honda squad meanwhile struggled to make much of an impression with Marc Marquez out of the weekend through injury, with rookie Alex Marquez its highest representative in 18^th overall-with Marc’s replacement Stefan Bradl propping up the times in 22^nd.

Brno, Friday, August 07, 2020