MotoGP™ roared again on Friday for the first time in three weeks as the World Championship resumed at the iconic TT Assen circuit, host of MotoGP™ since 1949! Red Bull GASGAS Tech3’s Pedro Acosta and Augusto Fernandez finally returned to their RC16s when they kicked off their Dutch Grand Prix campaign this morning with Free Practice, followed in the afternoon by the already-crucial Practice. Acosta was a bit unlucky when a late yellow flag in Practice saw his fast lap being cancelled. Unable to improve as no time remained on the clock, he took P15 of the afternoon’s session, and he will have to go through the pre-qualifying stage on Saturday, alongside teammate Augusto Fernandez who finished twenty-first.

Three weeks off was more than enough for young rookie Pedro Acosta who was excited to return to competition and take things back where he left them after a rainy Mugello test. The Dutch layout is not one of the most successful historically for the #31, but the opening day led us thinking that statistics that could be rectified. On his debuts on the TT in the premier class, Acosta was P14 with a 1’33.283, and was the last rider within less than one second from the session’s leader, World Champion Francesco Bagnaia. In the afternoon’s session, the rookie was able to make significant improvements to gain a bit more than one second, and sat provisionally in the top 10 all the way until the time attack-session. With times going down, the young Shark found himself out of the top 10, but while all his sectors were improving, a yellow flag saw his fast lap cancelled. Unfortunately, Acosta had to settle with just a fifteenth place on Friday, a position far from the objectives, but the pace has been promising, and he will have his chances in Q1 tomorrow morning.

Back on one of his season’s favourites, there was Augusto Fernandez who was eager to take advantage of the layout to close the gap on his rivals. He was still a bit far off after the morning’s session as he finished the session in P20 with a 1’34.120, 1.719 seconds from the fastest, leaving him with a decent margin for improvement. The feeling appeared to improve in Practice as the Spaniard went down in the 1’33.344, but that was still a bit far from the top guys. Augusto Fernandez completed day one in P21, and will try to find some solutions to gain a few hundredths that will allow him to be more competitive as an important Super Saturday lies ahead of us. The MotoGP action will be back tomorrow at 10:10 LT!