Viñales, Lorenzo and Espargaró lead the FP1 at Mugello

The World Motorcycle Championship has kicked off action at the ninth round of the season at the Mugello Circuit. The first free practice sessions have left Maverick Viñales as the fastest in Moto3, Jorge Lorenzo in MotoGP and Pol Espargaró in Moto2 in this first contact with the track.

The first riders out on track were the Moto3 riders, with Maverick Viñales being the fastest. The Blusens Avintia rider went all out, eager to bounce back after a horrible weekend at Sachsenring, setting a time of 2:00.430 and leaving his main rival Danny Kent just 0.133s behind. It’s a tight gap at the top, but with the 25 in front in the first free practice sessions.

Completing the top 5 in the Moto3 category were Sandro Cortese, 0.205s behind Viñales, followed by Luis Salom in 4th and Niccolo Antonelli in 5th. The top ten positions went to Romano Fenati in 6th, Alberto Moncayo in 7th, Louis Rossi in 8th, Jakub Kornfeil in 9th and Jonas Folger in 10th.

For the rest of the Spanish riders, this FP1 has been complicated, but there is still a lot ahead, so step by step with Héctor Faubel in 13th, Efrén Vázquez in 14th, Alex Rins in 21st, Adrián Martín in 24th, Isaac Viñales in 30th and Iván Moreno in 34th.

The MotoGP category had Jorge Lorenzo as the fastest, with the championship leader arriving at Mugello fully charged, setting a time of 1:48.131 and leaving his rivals far behind. Great work in this first outing on track.

Lorenzo managed to ride fast, leaving Stoner 0.518s behind. That is more than half a second in this first contact with the track, with the top 5 closed by Dani Pedrosa in 3rd at 0.746s, Nicky Hayden in 4th and Cal Crutchlow in 5th.

For the top 10 we had Andrea Dovizioso in 6th, Valentino Rossi in 7th, Héctor Barberá in 8th, Ben Spies in 9th and Stefan Bradl in 10th. The rest of the Spanish riders were Álvaro Bautista in 11th, Aleix Espargaró in 13th and Iván Silva in 20th. The best CRT was the ART of Randy de Puniet, behind Bradl, in 11th position.

In the Moto2 category we had another of our own in first place, Pol Espargaró with 1:53.139, closely followed by Andrea Iannone. The Italian wants to be at the front in his home country, on his circuit, and finished just 0.090s behind. Closing the top 5 were Thomas Luthi at 0.260s, Bradley Smith in 4th at more than three tenths, and Marc Márquez in 5th.

For the top 10 came Simone Corsi in 6th, Scott Redding in 7th, Randy Krummenacher in 8th, Claudio Corti in 9th and Mika Kallio in 10th. We saw some off-track excursions and crashes, but all without consequences, so a lot of activity on track. The rest of the Spanish riders finished 11th Nico Terol, 16th Tito Rabat, 18th Julián Simón, 21st Toni Elías, 22nd Ricky Cardús, 28th Axel Pons and 33rd Elena Rosell. Terol’s improvement is very interesting, step by step.