Markus Zoerweg
Head of Motorcycle Department
With the outstanding MSM motorcycle gang, Markus keeps things running at MotoGP, WSBK & Co. He likes to irritate people with his Austrian accent.MORE
Francesco Bagnaia is in top form this MotoGP weekend in Assen. The reigning world champion was already ahead in both sessions on Friday and underlined his role as favourite on Saturday morning with the best time in the second free practice session.
The result: Bagnaia recorded a time of 1:31.670 minutes, 0.073 seconds faster than Maverick Vinales. Pedro Acosta finished third ahead of Marc Marquez and Jorge Martin. Franco Morbidelli, Fabio Di Giannantonio, Alex Marquez, Raul Fernandez and Aleix Espargaro completed the top ten.
Falls, defects & incidents: Marc Marquez had a strange episode in the second free practice session. He went out onto the track without knee sliders. After a few corners he noticed his mistake and returned to the pits.
There were also problems for brother Alex Marquez: he had to return to the pits after just one lap and switch to his spare motorcycle.
After two excursions on Friday, Marco Bezzecchi came off the track again and had to go through the gravel, but was able to avoid a fall once again. One lap later, however, the VR46 driver was hit: he flew off at high speed in Turn 7. Bezzecchi seemed to have gotten off lightly in this crash.
Raul Fernandez followed Marco Bezzecchi’s example a few minutes later and also crashed in Turn 7. He also seemed to have escaped with just a scare. However, his fall had caused a lot of gravel to be thrown onto the track, which is why the session was briefly interrupted for cleaning.
The weather: The MotoGP started its sprint Saturday in Assen in sunshine and pleasant outside temperatures of 19 degrees and 31 degrees on the track. The wind, which had been very annoying on Friday, had also died down overnight.
© Motorsport Magazine