NAKAGAMI CONTINUES STRONG FORM AT ARAGON

Takaaki Nakagami continues strong form at Aragon – Photo: LAT

Honda has continued its great recent run of form in MotoGP, with Takaaki Nakagami ending the opening day on top of the timesheets in Aragon.

By DAN McCARTHY

All Honda riders found themselves up the pointy end on Friday topping both the 45-minute practice sessions, factory Honda rider Alex Marquez ended p1 on top with Nakagami who recently re-signed with LCR Honda fastest in the second practice.

The Japanese rider ended the day comfortably faster than the rest of the field setting a 1m 47.782s time.

The next best rider was factory Yamaha pilot Maverick Vinales who rounded out the day with the second fastest time, 0.175s back.

All other riders were over 0.3s behind, Nakagami’s teammate Cal Crutchlow ended up 0.329s behind in third position.

While the Hondas’s excelled the 2020 Desmosedici GP20 Ducati riders were all in strife. The Italian brand thought it had a tough day last Friday, but this was far worse.

All four riders ended the day in 17th-20th position, Danilo Petrucci was 17th fastest, over a second off the pace of Nakagami.

Aussie Jack Miller ended the day in 18th but was the slowest of all 21 runners in the final session and one of only two not to improve in that later event.

Title contender Andrea Dovizioso end the day in 19th, ahead of Francesco Bagnaia who crashed late in the second session at Turn 1.

Behind Crutchlow were the riders who head the top two in the championship, with Fabio Quartararo fourth, only 0.018s ahead of the new championship leader Joan Mir in fifth.

Factory Repsol Honda rider Marquez was the only other rider not to improve after topping practice 1, but with the sensational time still ended the day sixth in the combined practice times.

Factory Suzuki rider and last weekends winner Alex Rins ended up seventh fastest ahead of Iker Lecuona, factory Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaro and factory KTM rider Pol Espargaro.

In practice 1 three of the four Hondas found themselves in the top four at the end of the session.

Marquez sat a top of the pile, setting a 1m 48.184s from brand mate Nakagami.

Mir split the Honda trio by setting the third fastest time from Stefan Bradl who remains as the HRC substitute driver replacing the injured Marc Marquez.

Franco Morbidelli rounded out a competitive top five in p1 on Friday at Aragon, Qualifying for the race commences at 11.45pm AEDT tonight and can be viewed on Fox Sports 507.

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