Maverick Viñales arrived in Jerez, on a track where he’s known glory in the past, with the confidence of a P2 (in our hearts) in Doha just two weeks ago. Eager to continue taming his RC16, ‘Top Gun’ kicked off the opening Free Practice 1 with the 4th fastest time with a 1'37.425, behind the two Ducatis of Marquez brothers and the Factory Yamaha from Fabio Quartararo. That gave the #12 a nice feeling heading to the afternoon’s key Practice session, while track conditions became hotter and tougher for all. While he looked for the right setting during the first three runs with a 1'37.838 having him outside of the top 10, Viñales put on a new set of slick tyres for run 4, and we saw the Spaniard clock in a 1'36.937 powering him up to a provisional 2nd time in the timesheets. Meanwhile, all riders increased their efforts too as we progressively saw many getting in the low 1’36, while Alex Marquez set a new benchmark in 1’35.991 despite his big crash earlier into the session. As he exited his garage for one final time attack, we Viñales saw him head straight into the gravel – without crashing though – but that was the end of his session. He finished in P14, and he will have to go through Q1 on Saturday morning for the first time since the Grand Prix of Argentina.

The first day at Jerez was more challenging for Enea Bastianini, still struggling to find the right way on his RC16. In a similar scenario than what we have been used to in the past four rounds, the Italian struggled to find his marks during the opening session on the 4.423 km iconic layout. Despite being a top 5 finisher of the 2024 edition, ‘Bestia’ remained a bit far in the timesheets at the end of play of the first 45 minutes on a track, with his best in 1'38.400 placing him in P20 this morning. In the afternoon’s Practice, the Italian  progressively found some ways to improve his lap times, until he reached 1'37.188 in the final 15 minutes with a fresh set of tyres. He could not improve more during his final run as he faced a ‘nervous bike’ and struggled to turn it well, making him lose key time. That’s P19 for Enea, who will join his teammate in Q1 on Saturday morning at 10:50 local time (UTC+2), shortly after Free Practice 2 kicking off the first Super Saturday in Europe, at 10:10 LT.