YAMAHA AND VINALES DOMINATE IN ARAGON

Maverick Vinales. and Yamaha dominate in Aragon – Photo: LAT

Yamaha has dominated the opening day of practice ahead of Sunday’s Aragon MotoGP event on Sunday.

By HEATH McALPINE

Maverick Vinales led both sessions on the sole factory Yamaha after teammate Valentino Rossi contracted COVID-19 just prior to the event. The Japanese manufacturer has elected not to replace the nine-time world champion.

Fellow Yamaha riders Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo followed on their Petronas SRT examples to follow Vinales in the opening session, before switching positions by the end of the second practice session.

Australian Jack Miller placed 14th in opening practice and improved marginally to 13th in the second session in what was a disappointing day for Ducati.

The opening session was delayed by 30-minutes due to the cold conditions with Vinales setting a 1m 49.866s, some 3s off the time Marc Marquez recorded in the equivalent session last year.

Morbidelli was 0.085s in arrears with teammate Morbidelli a further 0.091s behind in third, though both riders fell during the session.

Honda’s Alex Marquez recovered from a Turn 2 crash to take fourth ahead of Takaaki Nakagami, Joan Mir, Pol Espargaro, Cal Crutchlow, Alex Rins and Aleix Espargaro.

For practice two, the conditions improved allowing Vinales to set a blistering 1m 47.771s to be the only rider within that bracket in practice two ahead of Quartararo by 0.249s, while Morbidelli was 0.447s off the pace.

Best of the rest was Suzuki’s Mir, 0.730s off the mark set by Vinales.

Crutchlow, Aleix Espargaro, Pol Espargaro, Marquez, Nakagami and Rins completed the top 10 to make advance into Q2.

Ducati were absent from the top 10, Johann Zarco on a 2019 machine was best placed in 11th, though crashed out with little time left in the session.

Brad Binder also fell at Turn 14 and was unable to continue. He placed 18th.

For more of the latest MotoGP news pick up the current issue of Auto Action. Also make sure you follow us on social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or our weekly email newsletter for all the latest updates between issues.