Italian Andrea Dovizoso has led a Ducati clean sweep of the top four positions in this morning’s first MotoGP free practice at Aragon and went under the existing lap record in the process.
Dovizios put in a fresh hard rear with five minutes left to run and stuck in a 1’48.020 to top the timesheets but he was chased hard by the satellite Pramac bike of Danilo Petrucci - who is running a tear-drop aero device on his fork tops.
Petrucci had the same soft/hard combination as Dovizioso and lapped a fraction less than two-tenths slower than the works man. Team-mate Jack Miller, mirroring the tyre combo, was half a second further back with Jorge Lorenzo taking fourth place, 0.017s further back.
Maverick Vinales, taking advantage of the relatively cool track conditions, used a medium rear to set a 1'48.803 for fifth place while Marc Marquez put in his usual Friday race simulation with 19 laps on the same medium/medium combination with a best of 1'48.804 set on his fourth lap.
Valentino Rossi came from 15th place to seventh with his penultimate lap, using a soft/medium combination to set a 1'48.958. Fellow Yamaha man Johann Zarco, who has been struggling with rear grip in recent races, was eighth with Britain's Cal Crutchlow in ninth.
The LCR Honda man kept the same rear medium in for the whole session, setting a 1'49.128 with a soft front before switching to a new medium front for his last run.
Andrea Iannone completed the top ten with Ecstar Suzuki team-mate Alex Rins - who is running an older chassis after his new ones were sent back to Japan for undisclosed reasons - next along. Pol Espargaro bear brother Alex to 12th place with Alvaro Bautista and Karel Abraham ahead of Scott Redding.
MV Agusta WorldSBK rider Jordi Torres made his MotoGP debut for the Avintia Ducati team and ended 4.8s off the pace after 18 laps on the same soft/soft combination.
