Marc Marquez Leads the Way in Messy Start to Portuguese MotoGP Weekend

The start of the Portuguese MotoGP weekend at Portimao saw a messy opening due to heavy overnight rain which left the track covered in sand and dust. The Moto3 practice was red-flagged and canceled, while the Moto2 and MotoGP sessions ran behind schedule due to the tricky track conditions.

In the first MotoGP practice session, times were over three seconds slower than the lap record from the previous year. Despite this, Marc Marquez from the Gresini Racing team set the pace with a time of 1m40.484s on his Ducati, leading the field.

Marquez, who had a solid Ducati debut in the previous race, led the times ahead of Maverick Vinales from Aprilia, who was dealing with a minor illness. The factory KTM riders, Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira, followed in third and fourth, with Francesco Bagnaia from Pramac completing the top five.

Jack Miller had initially set the pace but was later overtaken by the rest of the field as the track conditions improved. Throughout the session, lap times continued to drop as the riders cleared the dust off the racing line.

The fastest lap, set by Marquez, was far off the pole time set by the Spaniard in the previous year. Despite some late accidents, Marquez held onto his position at the top of the timesheets and continued to adapt to his Ducati.

Other notable riders included Franco Morbidelli, who completed the most laps in the session after a training accident that kept him out of pre-season testing, and Enea Bastianini, who ended up in 19th place.

The Honda team brought some new items for testing in Portugal, building on data from previous races, as the competition between teams heated up going into the weekend.