Franco Morbidelli tops Misano MotoGP FP1, Yamaha's V4 debut
Franco Morbidelli fastest in opening practice for the San Marino MotoGP - Augusto Fernandez gives the Yamaha V4 its public debut.
Franco Morbidelli began FP1 at Misano watching from the pit box as he served a ten-minute suspension for disobeying instructions from marshals when he rejoined after crashing in last Sunday's Barcelona round.
Morbidelli then finished the session with a crash. But in-between the local star set the fastest lap time of 1m 31.342s to keep Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha at bay by 0.249s.
Quartararo ran a new soft front tyre at the end of the session, while most riders stuck with older soft fronts and medium rears.
Fabio di Giannantonio put both VR46 Ducatis in the top three, ahead of the Marquez brothers, Barcelona winner Alex getting the edge over title leader Marc by 0.011s.
Luca Marini put Honda a competitive sixth, ahead of the lead KTM of Pedro Acosta and top Aprilia of Marco Bezzecchi. Bezzecchi had the oldest rubber of any rider by the end of the session, with 22 laps front and rear.
Trackhouse RS-GP rider Raul Fernandez and Bezzecchi’s factory team-mate Jorge Martin made it three Aprilias in a row. Reigning champion Martin was one of the few to try the medium front tyre.
Francesco Bagnaia began his home weekend in eleventh place, but only 0.587s from Morbidelli. Miguel Oliveira joined Morbidelli in sampling the gravel, crashing twice from his Pramac Yamaha.
Meanwhile, all eyes were on wild-card Augusto Fernandez as he took the new Yamaha V4 prototype to 21st place, but only 1.1s from Morbidelli, during its first official session.
Fernandez had been 16th, ahead of M1 riders Miguel Oliveira and Alex Rins, when he pulled off track and parked the V4 due to a technical issue with 20 minutes to go.
There was no smoke from the engine, and Fernandez is likely to have reacted swiftly to a dashboard warning.
The Spaniard, newly confirmed as remaining in the test riding role until the end of 2027, returned on his spare bike for the final ten minutes.
For comparison, Fernandez had also been 0.9s slower than Quartararo during Friday practice on his previous wild-card appearance, with the Inline M1, at the (longer) Brno circuit.
That's despite the V4 appearing to run a conservative power output, with Fernandez slowest through the speed trap at 292.6km/h.
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Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
