LOMBOK (Indonesia) — Honda’s Luca Marini clocked the fastest time in the first practice for the Indonesia MotoGP on Friday ahead of KTM’s Pedro Acosta, while recently crowned champion Marc Marquez was fifth fastest.
In warm conditions at the Mandalika track on the resort island of Lombok, Italian rider Marini laid down a fastest lap of 1min 30.809sec, AFP reported.
That was 0.136sec faster than Acosta and 0.237sec ahead of Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi, who finished second behind Marc Marquez at the San Marino Grand Prix last month.
Marini is 12th in the overall MotoGP standings, with Acosta in sixth and Bezzecchi in fourth going into the race weekend.
Championship winner Marquez finished 0.462sec behind Marini, a week after clinching his first MotoGP title since 2019 at Motegi.
His seventh title win capped a remarkable comeback from an injury nightmare, with an impeccable season of 11 grand prix wins leaving him far ahead of his brother Alex in second place.
His 541 championship points are already a single-season record for a MotoGP rider.
The second practice session, from which the top 10 riders go straight into Saturday’s second round of qualifying.
Qualifying shapes the grid for both the sprint race on Saturday and the main event GP on Sunday, with a maximum of 37 points available.
Last year’s MotoGP champion Jorge Martin’s collarbone surgery has been successfully completed, his Aprilia team said, after the 27-year-old Spaniard crashed during the Japanese Grand Prix sprint at the weekend.
Martin collided with teammate Marco Bezzecchi on the opening lap and was ruled out of the race after X-rays revealed a displaced fracture of his right collarbone.
“Jorge returned to Spain to undergo surgery for the reduction and fixation of the fracture, which was carried out on Tuesday morning at the Hospital Universitari Dexeus,” a team statement said.
“Surgery on Jorge Martin’s right collarbone has been successfully completed. Recovery time will be assessed in the coming days depending on his progression following the surgery. As permitted by the regulations, Martin will not be replaced for the Indonesian GP.”
Martin is 20th in the riders’ standings after a nightmare season in which he has already missed 10 races due to injuries having won his first MotoGP title last term with Pramac Racing.
A pre-season crash ruled him out of the first three rounds and a crash in his first race in Qatar led to a collapsed lung and bruised ribs.
Ducati’s Marc Marquez clinched his seventh MotoGP championship with second place at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Marc Marquez’s gamble to leave Honda in 2023 has paid off spectacularly this year, with the Spaniard claiming a seventh MotoGP championship with Ducati that he concedes vindicated the “most difficult decision” of his career.
The 32-year-old’s emotional title win, sealed with five rounds to spare, came after a remarkable journey from injury hell and the brink of retirement to equalling the title haul of MotoGP great Valentino Rossi.
After winning six titles with Honda, Marquez endured a nightmare period with four arm surgeries that left him contemplating hanging up his racing leathers as he struggled with an uncompetitive bike that punished his battered body.
However, his salvation came through an unlikely route few could have predicted – a switch to satellite team Gresini Racing and their year-old Ducati machines, a leap of faith rooted in instinct that convinced him he could fight at the front again.
“In 2023, I decided to follow my instinct. I had a very nice talk with Honda, with all my people. When I moved to Gresini, they had the best bike, the Ducati,” Marquez told reporters.
