Maverick Vinales made the headlines on day one of the German Grand Prix weekend with some sensational riding to top the timesheets at the Sachsenring. The Spaniard recovered from a high-speed crash at turn eleven to outpace Ducati’s Andrea Iannone with championship leader Marc Marquez third fastest for Repsol Honda.
With turn eleven the first right-hander following a series of lefts, the high-speed bend is a regular crash scene at the Sachsenring and Jorge Lorenzo was the biggest casualty in the morning as the front end of his Movistar Yamaha lost grip on the cold side of the tyre. The world champion rode on in FP2 despite injuring his hand but the Yamaha riders collectively struggled, none making it into the top ten.
Vinales entered the same gravel trap midway through FP2, destroying his Suzuki in the process, but the young Spaniard soon re-joined the fray on his second machine and obliterated his own benchmark time, clocking a 1:22.161 despite some dramatic slides in the closing corners. Iannone, quickest of all in the morning, took second on a 1:22.381 and was the only rider within half a second of the Suzuki.
Marquez, winner on his last six visits to the Sachsenring, took third ahead of fellow Honda rider Cal Crutchlow while the remainder of the top ten was made up by a flurry of Ducatis. They were led by Andrea Dovizioso in fifth with Aleix Espargaro edging the second Suzuki into sixth, just ahead of Hector Barbera, the Pramac Ducatis of Danilo Petrucci and Scott Redding and Aspar’s Yonny Hernandez.
The Movistar Yamahas of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo ended the day in fourteenth and sixteenth respectively, choosing to wait for warmer conditions on Saturday.
2016 GoPro Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland (Free Practice Classification)
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