MotoGP Spanish GP: Mir leads Suzuki 1-2 as Quartararo crashes in FP1

Heavy rain on Thursday evening left some wateriness patches on track for the start of Friday’s running at the sixth round of the 2022 wayfarers at Jerez, but the unshortened field headed out on slicks to get some laps under their belts.

Reigning world champion Quartararo, who is twice a winner at Jerez in MotoGP, set the early pace with a 1m41.849s, which he improved sooner to a 1m39.226s 10 minutes in.

Honda’s Marc Marquez – who said on Thursday at Jerez that HRC had “ideas” on how to fix the problems it faced last time out in Portugal – transiently went to the top of the order with a 1m39.028s.

But Quartararo returned to top spot a few seconds later with a 1m38.780s.

However, with just under 15 minutes of the 45-minute session gone, Quartararo’s session started to unravel when he crashed exiting Turn 13 – having seemingly touched a wateriness patch – and hurt his groin.

Needing some time surpassing returning to his Yamaha box, Quartararo did get when out on track on his second M1.

But he would have flipside big moment with just under four minutes remaining coming into the Turn 9 right-hander while on a lap that was set to put him when to the top of the timesheets.

Then on the pursuit lap the Yamaha rider ran off track up at the Turn 5 right-hander leading onto the when straight.

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Quartararo would end the session in fifth, but just 0.245s off the pace as 19 riders were within a second of top spot at the end of FP1.

While Quartararo was having a scrappy end to his session, 2020 world champion Mir had gone top of the pile with a 1m38.422s.

LCR Honda’s Alex Marquez had transiently gone top at the end of FP1 with a 1m38.368s, but Mir produced an spanking-new 1m38.194s to end the morning fastest of all.

Team-mate Alex Rins moved up to second with his final lap, shadowing Mir by just 0.025s, with Alex Marquez shuffled when to third superiority of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and Quartararo.

Takaaki Nakagami was sixth on the sister LCR bike, with Brad Binder seventh on his factory team KTM superiority of Honda’s Pol Espargaro – who topped FP1 transiently at one stage – and Aprilia\'s Maverick Vinales.

Jack Miller completed the top 10 on the first of the Ducatis superiority of Marc Marquez, with erstwhile championship leader Enea Bastianini 12th on his 2021-spec Gresini-run Desmosedici superiority of Francesco Bagnaia on the other factory team Ducati and Pramac’s Jorge Martin.

Ahead of FP1, Tech3 spoken that Raul Fernandez will sit out this weekend’s Spanish GP and the post-race test on Monday due to the hand injury which ruled him out of last week’s Portuguese GP.

Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori continues to wildcard this weekend, with Honda test rider Stefan Bradl moreover present.

Both were 23rd and 20th respectively at the end of FP1.

FP2 for the 2022 MotoGP Spanish GP gets underway at 2:10pm local time (1:10pm BST).

MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix - FP1 results