Bezzecchi leads all-Ducati top four at Silverstone, Bastianini crashes on in-lap

Marco Bezzecchi was the fastest rider during Free Practice 1 at Silverstone, while MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia endured a frustrating session.

Robert Jones

04 Aug 2023

Marco Bezzecchi, MotoGP, Dutch MotoGP, 23 June

As the first laps came in, Marco Bezzecchi was the early leader before Jorge Martin, who is one point ahead of the Mooney VR46 Ducati rider in the championship, took over at the top.

A full second up after three sectors, Aleix Espargaro and Jack Miller then battled for top spot with the KTM rider managing to better Espargaro.

Martin and Bezzecchi then reduced Miller’s lead to under a tenth as the Pramac rider remained ahead of Bezzecchi.

Continuing his strong showing from Assen, Bezzecchi then set a time of 2:01.583s to make it a Mooney VR46 Ducati 1-2 ahead of Luca Marini.

Bezzecchi then upped his speed even more to break into the 2m flat lap time barrier, which as a result saw him move six tenths clear of Maverick Vinales.

Miller then thought he overhauled Bezzecchi by just -0.007s, however, the factory KTM rider had his lap time deleted due to exceeding track limits.

FP1 saw Honda and Marc Marquez continue to struggle, as the eight-time world champion was only 15th with half the session gone.

Despite his strong start, Bezzecchi had to avoid a potential scare at turn six when he picked up his Ducati machine and ran off circuit.

After losing his factory Yamaha seat to Alex Rins, Franco Morbidelli became the first crasher as he went down hard at turn seven.

With FP1 having no bearing on qualifying seeding, time attack runs failed to materialise during the closing stages.

Despite being on very used tyres, Espargaro was threatening the top time after posting two red sectors.

However, it was instead Marini who leapt to the top of the leaderboard with a time of 2:00.831s.

Espargaro eventually got the better of the two Mooney riders with a 2:00.677s lap time, but Johann Zarco, who did choose to run a new soft rear tyre, improved by a further two tenths.

Bezzecchi and Marini then found more time in order to make it a 1-2 for the third time in FP1, as Marini again held the advantage.

While it was a smooth-sailing session for many Ducati riders, Bagnaia was continuing to struggle as he began to gesture at his machine.