The superiority of the Ducati on this first day was something that could even be foreseeable, what was not so much is that the first Honda was that of Alex Rins
The Italian Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia (Ducati Desmosedici GP23), who in the first free practice session could not get past sixteenth position, ‘amended’ his performance by achieving the best record of MotoGP at the end of the first day of practice for the Italian Grand Prix, at the Mugello circuit.
bagnaia scored a best time of 1:45.436 with which he barely surpassed his compatriot Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati Desmosedici GP22) by barely 63 thousandths of a second and with the Spanish Alex Rins again as the first Honda, in third position.
The superiority of the Ducati on this first day was something that could even be foreseeable, what was not so much is that the first Honda was that of Alex Rins, who despite being an official rider of the Japanese manufacturer, does not receive the same treatment , not even close, than his compatriots Marc Márquez -eighth- and Joan Mir -twenty-second-, with a fall included that took him directly to the circuit clinic.
as it happened to Arón Canet in the morning in Moto2Joan Mir (Honda RC 213 V), who ended up on the ground very early in the second round of MotoGP with his first motorcycle, the one equipped with the German engineering Kalex chassis, which already conditioned him the rest of the session when he was behind the twentieth position, as the Mallorcan rider had to go straight to the clinic of the circuit and could no longer finish the session.
Mir suffered the accident in the complicated curve one of the Tuscan trackthat of San Donato, at the end of the finish line, the same point at which the Italian Fabio di Giannantonio (Ducati Desmosedici GP22) fell at the end of the session, where he brakes from almost 360 kilometers per hour at around 85 km/h.
Another victim of the day was, minutes later, his teammate, Marc Márquez (Honda RC 213 V), who he stepped on the shoulder in turn fourteen and ended up on the groundand he had to run back to his workshop to take the second bike, with just over ten minutes of training ahead and eleventh on the time table, therefore out of the second direct classification.
The first changes had already taken place in the leading positions, with Italian Marco Bezzecchi leading the Ducati trio in frontformed together with the Spanish Jorge Martín, fifth at the end, and the world leader, the also Italian Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia.
Márquez had time to go after his compatriot Maverick Vinales (Aprilia RS-GP) with the second Honda and a little less than eight minutes ahead, but with the certainty that the rider chosen to get behind his slipstream was not going to cut the accelerator at any time.
And so it was, in the second round, ‘hooked’ on Viñales, Marc Márquez managed to climb to the first position, but it didn’t last long After them came Alex Rins (Honda RC 213 V) and a “cohort” of Ducati riders who got between them, ahead of Rins, Bagnaia and Bezzecchi, behind Jorge Martín, Enea Bastianini and Johann Zarco.
In the ninth and tenth positions were Maverick Viñales and Raúl Fernándezboth riding Aprilias, who ended up out of second place after being overtaken on their last lap by the South African Brad Binder (KTM RC 16), the Spanish Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia RS-GP) and also by Luca Marini.
Espargaró, who suffered a fall in the morning, revealed in it the discomfort he had in his right foot after an accident, apparently while he was training with his bicycle the previous day at the same Mugello circuit.
Aleix Espargarówith the ninth fastest time, just ahead of the Italian Luca Marini (Ducati Desmosedici GP22), closed the positions with the right to move to the second direct classificationan objective that they did not achieve, among others and in addition to Viñales and Fernández, Alex Márquez, Jack Miller or Fabio Quartararo.