Jack Miller escaped the blocks fastest to lead the opening practice session for the French Grand Prix at Le Mans by 0.095s over VR46’s Luca Marini.
Times tumbled continuously at a cool Le Mans venue as the riders first hit the tarmac for the weekend, though Marc Marquez quickly found himself on the back foot on his MotoGP return after crashing his Honda at Turn 11 in the early stages of the outing – though fortunately he walked away unhurt.
Improvements started to come thick and fast as the session raced towards its conclusion, with no less than seven different riders taking turns at the peak of the time sheets across the closing minutes – with Miller the man to remain there as the chequered flag was shown with a 1:31.449s.
The KTM racer led Marini by just under a tenth-of-a-second, while Binder backed up his team-mate’s impressive early pace with a run to third on the sister factory KTM.
Home hero Johann Zarco ended up fourth quickest for Pramac Ducati ahead of the Gresini-run Desmosedici of Alex Marquez, with Joan Mir ending FP1 and encouraging sixth fastest on the first of the factory Honda entries.
Aleix Espargaro inserted his Aprilia up into seventh at the death just clear of the other VR46 machine of Marco Bezzecchi, while Maverick Vinales and reigning premier class world champion Francesco Bagnaia rounded off the top ten for Aprilia and Ducati respectively.
MotoGP world champion of 2021 Fabio Quartararo ended up 11th overall having been shuffled down the pack as a result of the flurry of late improvements, as was the returning Marquez who ended up 12th fastest having re-joined the fray on his second RC213-V – Marquez having tested Honda’s latest chassis as well as Kalex’s new chassis over the course of the session.
Augusto Fernandez ended up a solid 14th on his GasGas entry just ahead of Takaaki Nakagami, who was forced to prioritise his spare Honda after his other machine suffered an engine blow up at the mid-point of FP1.
Jorge Martin saw a late improvement go begging after making a mistake on his fastest tour – leaving him 16th as a result – while Ducati stand-in Danilo Petrucci ended up 19th just ahead of RNF man Lorenzo Savadori, who is replacing Miguel Oliveira at the squad this weekend.
The RNF outfit looks to be running without either of its primary riders at Le Mans after Raul Fernandez failed to post a representative time as he continues to struggle with an injured arm, the Spaniard likely to call it quits with a view to returning at Mugello next time out.
