Marco Bezzecchi set the pace on Friday at the MotoGP San Marino GP. The Italian rider established a new lap record at Misano, becoming one of the two riders to break into the 1m30s.
After the initial flying laps, Maverick Viñales (Aprilia) was in the lead, ahead of Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha). Viñales was later overtaken by Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM), who became the new leader.
This situation didn’t last long, as the South African was soon passed by Viñales, Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), and Jorge Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati). Within the first ten minutes, Viñales was the first to go faster than the reference lap time set in FP1. Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing Team/Ducati) did even better to take the lead.
Behind the Italian, Viñales was 0.009s adrift, followed by Martín, Michele Pirro (Aruba.it Ducati), and Bagnaia. The timesheet then stabilized until Martín beat Bezzecchi by 0.233s at the end of the first half of the session. The next rider to take the top spot was Dani Pedrosa (Red Bull KTM), one of the wildcard participants.
The Spanish rider held onto the top spot for a few minutes until he was overtaken by Martín. With 12 minutes remaining, Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM) suffered a crash, without major consequences. Shortly after, his teammate Binder moved up to third on the timesheet… before Bezzecchi reclaimed the lead.
In the last ten minutes, Viñales took the lead with the first-ever lap completed in Misano in 1m30s. This was a crucial stage in the battle for direct access to the second qualifying, so the riders were making their final time attacks.
A 1:30.972 🤯🤯🤯
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) September 8, 2023
Top Gun flies to set a NEW lap record! 🔥#SanMarinoGP 🇸🇲 pic.twitter.com/c436nSlRaY
In the final minutes, Viñales didn’t improve, while Bezzecchi, in his last attempt, set a new lap record with a time of 1m30.846s to overtake his rival by 0.126s. Pedrosa finished in third place, followed by Martín and Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Racing Team/Ducati).
Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda) secured the sixth place, ahead of Bagnaia, with Álex Márquez (Gresini/Ducati), Binder, and Raúl Fernández (CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team/Aprilia) also securing direct access to Q2. Pol Espargaró (GasGas Tech3/KTM) finished 11th and narrowly missed out on that goal by just 24 thousandths of a second. Among others, Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia), Quartararo, Franco Morbidelli (Monster Energy Yamaha) and Miller were also relegated to Q1.
Timesheet: