2025 Czech MotoGP: Marc Marquez tops wet-to-dry FP1 despite early bike dramas
Marc Marquez fastest in first Brno session five years
MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez topped a wet-to-dry FP1 at the 2025 Czech Grand Prix despite encountering bike issues in the early part of the session.
Marc Marquez comes to Brno for MotoGP’s first visit to the circuit since 2020 83 points in the lead of the championship after a dominant weekend last time out in Germany.
Winner on his last visit to Brno in 2019, Marquez’s morning at the Czech venue didn’t get off to the best of starts when he was forced to pull up straight out of the pits in the opening moments of FP1.
As his Ducati team failed to find a fix to the issue with his number one bike, Marquez wouldn’t get out until the final 25 minutes of the 45-minute session.
But due to the drying conditions after earlier rainfall, running was largely unrepresentative for the field as they got their eye in around Brno.
LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco would be fastest of the wet tyre times with a 2m06.506s with just under half an hour to go, before a few riders - namely Jack Miller and Alex Marquez - ventured out on slicks for the first time.
Pramac Yamaha’s Miller would end up fastest with a 2m03.844s after his first flurry of slick laps with just under 20 minutes to go, with the rest of the field switching over soon after.
The timesheet chopped and changed frequently through this phase, with Marc Marquez ultimately coming out on top with a 1m54.606s on his final lap of the session.
Such is the grip on offer from the new asphalt, that lap was only a few hundredths shy of his all-time lap record from 2016.
Marquez was 0.615s clear of Miller at the chequered flag, with Pecco Bagnaia completing the top three on the sister factory team Ducati.
Alex Marquez was fourth for Gresini Ducati, while Enea Bastianini was fifth on his return from a serious bout of food poisoning that ruled him out of the German Grand Prix.
He was trailed by KTM stablemate Pedro Acosta, with Marco Bezzecchi - who crashed early on - the leading Aprilia in seventh from Honda’s Luca Marini, Yamaha’s Alex Rins and Somkiat Chantra’s LCR replacement Takaaki Nakagami.
The top 10 was covered by 1.581s due to the changeable conditions.
Reigning world champion Jorge Martin made his first official MotoGP appearance since crashing out of the Qatar Grand Prix and his first since putting his contract dispute with Aprilia to bed.
He completed 15 laps on his RS-GP across wet and dry conditions and was 17th at the chequered flag.
However, he was inside the top five in the closing moments but had his best lap time scrubbed for exceeding track limits.
Trackhouse Aprilia’s Ai Ogura was the only other faller in the session, with the rookie destroying his RS-GP in a crash at Turn 3 in the latter stages.
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