2025 Dutch MotoGP: Fabio Quartararo tops twice red-flagged Practice, Marc Marquez crashes
Marc Marquez suffers two falls on Friday at Assen
Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo led a twice red-flagged Practice for the 2025 MotoGP Dutch Grand Prix, as Marc Marquez suffered a second fast fall of Friday.
Marc Marquez had a massive crash in FP1 on Friday morning at Assen, which left him with bruising on his left arm and elbow.
Despite this, he was able to top the opening session of the weekend. In this afternoon’s Practice, the Ducati rider suffered a second fast fall.
Marc Marquez went down at Turn 7 in the closing stages and took the wind out of his sails as he slid into the gravel.
He made it through to Q2 safely, however, as Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo led what was a crash-strewn hour-long session that was red-flagged twice.
Cold temperatures on track led to a number of medium front tyre users going down in quick succession inside the first 10 minutes of the session.
Gresini's Alex Marquez was the first to go down, at Turn 1, while LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco, Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer, VR46’s Franco Morbidelli, Tech3 KTM’s Enea Bastianini and Honda’s Aleix Espargaro fell soon after.
WIth just over half an hour on the clock, the red flag was flown when Trackhouse rookie Ai Ogura suffered a highside coming through Turn 11.
Ogura’s satellite Aprilia burst into flames as it bounced through the gravel, while debris was littered on track in the wake of the incident.
The Japanese rider was unharmed and was able to return to the session on his second bike, but ended up in the Q1 drop zone in 20th.
The red flag was brought out again in the final 15 minutes when factory Aprilia rider Lorenzo Savadori crashed exiting Turn 8 and his RS-GP slid into the middle of the circuit.
After a brief pause to clean up some fluid, the session got back underway with 13 minutes and 31 seconds remaining.
This led to a frantic end to the session as the field placed their bids for a direct place in Q2, with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo emerging as fastest of all with a final effort of 1m31.156s.
He headed Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez by 0.102s, with KTM’s Pedro Acosta a further 0.091s adrift in third.
Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi did lead the session briefly, but was shuffled to fourth at the chequered flag ahead of Ducati’s Pecco Bagnaia - who had just one fresh soft rear to use in the final time attack stages after his first effort was scuppered by the second red flag.
Marc Marquez was 0.045s further behind his team-mate, but has been taken to the medical centre for checks after his crash.
VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio was seventh ahead of Tech3 KTM’s Maverick Vinalles, Morbidelli and Zarco.
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