MotoGP title contender Jorge Martin set the pace in opening practice for this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi, albeit crashing his Pramac Ducati shortly after setting his fastest time.
Martin, who arrives in Japan only 13 points behind fellow Ducati man Francesco Bagnaia, topped the timesheets with a best effort of 1m45.192s, which was enough to top the session by 0.138s from Augusto Fernandez.
But Martin's run came to an abrupt end when he appeared to misjudge his braking for the Turn 3 left-hander, running into the gravel and suffering a relatively low-speed tumble with nine minutes to go. Behind surprise package Fernandez on the Tech3 GasGas, Marco Bezzecchi made a late improvement on his VR46 Ducati to jump up to third, 0.318s off the pace established by Martin.
Joan Mir was an encouraging fifth fastest on the Honda, within half a second of Martin, having revealed his intentions on Thursday to try the 2024-spec chassis that was not available to him last weekend in India.Next up was lead KTM man Brad Binder, Aprilia rider Maverick Vinales and last year's Japanese GP winner Jack Miller on the second of the KTMs.
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