Stefan Bradl set the pace in Friday practice in front of his home crowd at the Sachsenring but the German’s speed was by no means the story of the day, as Jorge Lorenzo suffered another damaging crash in the afternoon.
The world champion, just two weeks removed from breaking his collarbone at Assen, had gone fastest of all in the morning session but three laps into the afternoon, he suffered a spectacular highside at turn ten, landing heavily on the recently operated shoulder. After a visit to the medical centre, Lorenzo was found to have damaged the plate inserted into his shoulder a fortnight ago and the Spaniard will return to Barcelona for further surgery, ruling him out of the weekend.
“I have decided to go home and recover after today’s crash at Sachsenring”, explained Lorenzo. “I prefer to focus on surgery to fix the plate that was unfortunately bent during the crash. I will try to recover and be back as soon as possible.”
In his absence, Bradl went on to lead a Honda 1-2-3 in FP2 with Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez close behind. However, in the combined times which will determine the seedings for qualifying, Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi split the Repsol Hondas in second and fourth behind Bradl. Rossi though will be charged with the task of going it alone for the factory Yamaha squad.
Cal Crutchlow will be the other Yamaha rider expected to challenge at the sharp end but the Briton was also involved in a terrifying accident, losing control coming through the ‘waterfall’ corner at turn eleven, rolling several times at high speed through the gravel trap. The Assen polesitter was declared fit to continue in the meeting and will head into tomorrow’s final practice session sixth overall.
Nicky Hayden led the Ducati challenge in seventh on another difficult day for the Bologna squad with Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso crashing over the course of the day, as did Andrea Iannone who effectively split his ‘laboratory bike’ in two with a crash during FP1. The Pramac rider will return to the previous specification of GP13 tomorrow and will start FP3 in eleventh just ahead of Bradley Smith. The two rookies will need to improve in order to advance straight to Q2, with Aleix Espargaro, Dovizioso and Alvaro Bautista completing the current top ten behind Hayden.
 eni Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland – Combined Practice Classification (Top Ten Automatically Qualify For Q2) |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Rider | Bike | Team | Time |
| 1 | Stefan Bradl |
Honda | LCR Honda MotoGP | 1:22.030 |
| 2 |  Jorge Lorenzo |
Yamaha | Yamaha Factory Racing | 1:22.047 |
| 3 | Dani Pedrosa |
Honda | Repsol Honda Team | 1:22.221 |
| 4 |  Valentino Rossi |
Yamaha | Yamaha Factory Racing | 1:22.241 |
| 5 | Marc Marquez |
Honda | Repsol Honda Team | 1:22.251 |
| 6 |  Cal Crutchlow |
Yamaha | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 1:22.469 |
| 7 |  Nicky Hayden |
Ducati | Ducati Team | 1:22.572 |
| 8 | Aleix Espargaro |
ART | Power Electronics Aspar | 1:22.641 |
| 9 | Andrea Dovizioso |
Ducati | Ducati Team | 1:22.850 |
| 10 | Alvaro Bautista |
Honda | GO&FUN Honda Gresini | 1:22.882 |
| 11 | Andrea Iannone |
Ducati | Energy T.I. Pramac Racing | 1:23.008 |
| 12 | Bradley Smith |
Yamaha | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 1:23.040 |
| 13 |  Randy de Puniet |
ART | Power Electronics Aspar | 1:23.131 |
| 14 | Michele Pirro |
Ducati | Ignite Pramac Racing | 1:23.491 |
| 15 |  Yonny Hernandez |
ART | Paul Bird Motorsport | 1:23.524 |
| 16 | Hector Barbera |
FTR | Avintia Blusens | 1:23.627 |
| 17 | Michael Laverty |
PBM | Paul Bird Motorsport | 1:23.636 |
| 18 | Danilo Petrucci |
Ioda Suter | Came IodaRacing Project | 1:23.866 |
| 19 | Colin Edwards |
FTR Kawasaki | NGM Mobile Forward Racing | 1:23.911 |
| 20 | Claudio Corti |
FTR Kawasaki | NGM Mobile Forward Racing | 1:24.078 |
| 21 |  Hiroshi Aoyama |
FTR | Avintia Blusens | 1:24.647 |
| 22 |  Bryan Staring |
FTR Honda | GO&FUN Honda Gresini | 1:24.798 |
| 23 |  Lukas Pesek |
FTR | Came Ioda Racing Project | 1:25.568 |
| 24 | Karel Abraham |
ART | Cardion AB Motoracing | 1:26.195 |
