Maverick Viñales arrived at Aragón with a lot of optimism and eager to return to the rhythm he had in Le Mans. MotorLand has always been a track liked by ‘Top Gun’, and the positive past results of the KTM machine on the 17 turn-layout gave him an extra boost of confidence. Clear of his objectives, Maverick started this new campaign with a strong opening session on Friday morning, wrapping up FP1 in 5th with a 1'48.077 (+1.103). He maintained his consistency throughout the afternoon’s hot Practice under a boiling sun. If the first half hour was dedicated to working on the race pace and making adjustments on the bike, the second half was about trying to get those fast laps and the confidence in the tricky conditions, with very low grip. A 1'47.728 was the best of his first long run of 13 laps, which had him in the provisional top 10, until it was time to start pushing a little bit more. A 1’47.634 saw him move up to 3rd as just under 20 minutes remained on the clock, but he dropped down quickly with other riders also gearing up. Another improvement to 1’47.269 had him up again in 3rd, before he returned to the box for some final changes. While he was in the danger zone, Maverick pulled a brilliant 1’46.953, one that secured him the 3rd time of the timesheets behind Marquez brothers, and a direct Q2 ticket ahead of the qualifying. Encouraging day 1 for Viñales, who will look to continue keeping the consistency going on Super Saturday.

It was an encouraging day too for Enea Bastianini who completed his best Friday Practice of the season today, finishing in 13th of the Practice just 0.258 seconds off the qualifying spots. Arriving from a really tough weekend in Silverstone, Enea spent two important days in Austria at the factory earlier this week to work on aerodynamics and other key elements of the bike, with the clear goal to finally feel more comfortable on the RC16. Bastianini closed FP1 in 18th with a best in 1'49.163 (+2.189), in a similar scenario to the other Fridays. However, the crew decided to make some key changes on the front of the bike at lunch time, which somehow allowed Enea to gain stability on the bike. That allowed him to make some improvements, and most importantly finally start feeling a little bit better on his machine. As he took the 13th time of Practice with a 1'47.471, Bastianini has never been so close to the Q2 spots on a Friday, a noticeable improvement to highlight, and feed from as the squad is now heading to the preparations for a busy Saturday. The MotoGP™ class will be back on track on Saturday with FP2 at 10:10 (LT), followed immediately by the qualifying sessions, with Bastianini facing Q1, and Viñales already qualified in Q2. The Tissot Sprint will then start at 15:00 local time (UTC+2), for 11 laps.