Pramac rider Jorge Martin topped the timesheets during the opening MotoGP practice session at the Sachsenring, with Marc Marquez coming in a close second.
Although Marquez crashed his Gresini Ducati bike at Turn 1 at the end of the session, the Spaniard was able to find the nearest run-off area to recover to the pits.
Maverick Vinales finished the session once more as lead Aprilia rider. On the other side of the garage, Aleix Espargaro opted not to continue practice following a brief outing as he continues to recover from his hand injury that he sustained in Assen last weekend.
Trackhouse Aprilia rider Miguel Oliveira delivered a strong showing for the American outfit with fourth, as rookie sensation Pedro Acosta finished as lead KTM despite a late crash in the latter stages.
The Factory Ducati duo of Enea Bastianini and Francesco Bagnaia finished sixth and eighth, respectively, with Alex Marquez finishing in between, to the delight of Gresini, who has restored its faith in the Spaniard for a further two years.
Raul and Augusto Fernandez ended their session in ninth and tenth, before a stronger showing from Jack Miller put him in 11th.
VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi finished his session 12th and within 0.050s away from Miller, but edged out Pramac’s Franco Morbidelli by only 0.007s.
Fabio Quartararo, Brad Binder and Fabio Di Giannantonio were separated between 0.007s to occupy 14th-16th in the classification.
The Honda riders occupied the last spots once more with Taakaki Nakagami finished as lead Honda rider, roughly half a second off the pace of Di Giannantonio’s laptime.
Johann Zarco and Luca Marini followed, with test rider Stefan Bradl finishing ahead of Joan Mir, who had a disappointing session.
Alex Rins’ replacement for the weekend Remy Gardner rounded off proceedings in last.
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