ZARCO BREAKS RED BULL RING LAP RECORD ON FRIDAY

Johann Zarco broke the lap record at the Red Bull Ring to end the opening day of MotoGP action on top of the timesheets.

Like Friday at the venue seven says earlier practice 1 took place in dry conditions, while the second session was affected by rain.

As a result, nobody could get anywhere near Zarco who set a new all-time lap record, a 1m 22.827, a time faster than his fellow Ducati rider Jorge Martin’s pole lap at the venue last weekend.

Zarco was one of only a couple of riders to run new soft tyres at the end of the session but it paid dividends, topping the session by 0.798s.

Due to a limited amount of new tyre running late in the first session, coupled with the wet weather in practice 2, it resulted in a mixed up order at the end of the day.

Aussie Jack Miller on his factory Ducati ended the day a lowly 17th on the timesheets.

Reigning champion Joan Mir on his Suzuki was Zarco’s closest rival with the next best time, setting a 1m 23.625s .

Mir’s Spanish teammate Alex Rins was a further 0.105s back in third position.

Takaaki Nakagami was the fastest Honda rider in third ahead of the sole Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaro and the sole factory Yamaha ridden by Fabio Quartararo.

The second Aprilia rider Lorenzo Savadori is missing in action this weekend due to a broken ankle sustained in the race last weekend, while the #12 factory Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales has been suspended by his team.

Alex Marquez ended the day in seventh ahead of Francesco Bagnaia, six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez and last weekend’s race winner Martin.

Honda’s Pol Espargaro was just outside of the top 10 ahead of Enea Bastianini, Luca Marini and his half brother Valentino Rossi.

On the opening day the fastest of the factory KTM quartet was Miguel Oliveira in 15th position, ahead of teammate Brad Binder, Miller, Danilo Petrucci, Iker Lecuona and Cal Crutchlow.

Nobody improved in the wet second session, Lecuona on his Tech3 KTM was fastest after bravely putting slicks on in the dying seconds of the session.

He set a 1m 27.5, a staggering 3.397s clear of the second placed man Zarco on wets.

Aleix Espargaro was third from Marc Marquez and Miller.

Qualifying commences tonight at 10.05pm AEST.

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