The winner of the last Dutch TT, Vinales, after his worst weekend as a MotoGP rider in Germany, the last time he qualified in 21st and finished last, goes into the race weekend of this weekend in despondent form.
Dissatisfied with what he sees as a lack of respect from Yamaha in handling his problems in 2021, Vinales admitted in Assen that he will copy teammate Fabio Quartararo’s setups to find a solution to his problems.
MotoGP is returning to Assen this season after a year-long hiatus after the 2020 Dutch TT was canceled due to COVID-19.
The track has been completely re-paved since the last MotoGP visit, with Michelin bringing four front and rear tires for the riders to evaluate this weekend.
Maverick Vinales, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The new surface meant that the top spot frequently changed hands in the first half of the session, with championship leader Quartararo setting the early pace on his Yamaha with 1.36.752 minutes.
Over the next 10 minutes, the Hondas of Takaaki Nakagami, Pol Espargaro and Marc Marquez, Aleix Espargaro on the Aprilia and Quartararo’s Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales took turns at the top of the timesheet.
After 15 minutes of the 45-minute session, Vinales led the timesheets at 1: 33.442 minutes.
With just under 20 minutes to go, Honda’s Espargaro returned to the top of the pole with a time of 1: 33.392 minutes, as he too tries to copy the settings of his team-mate in order to better understand his RC213V.
Both Espargaro and Marquez have a new chassis to try out at Assen this weekend, which debuted in FP1 in the latter’s hands.
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Vinales was fastest again at 1: 33.308, with just over 12 minutes to go into the session that was benchmarked until the last few seconds when the Yamaha rider improved to 1: 33.072.
This would see the session as the best lap, with Pol Espargaro on the Honda 0.111 seconds back.
Suzuki’s Alex Rins jumped to third place late with 1: 33.501 minutes, with Quartararo and Johann Zarco on the Pramac Ducati completing the top 5.
Danilo Petrucci was the only KTM representative in the top 10 at the end of FP1 in sixth, Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and LCRs Nakagami fell behind.
The German GP winner Marquez finished ninth on the new chassis, but got a shock at the end of the session when he lost the rear of his RC213V in the Geert Timmer chicane and had to run through the gravel.
The top 10 was completed by Lorenzo Savadori’s sister Aprilia, who led the factory Ducati team pair Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia, with world champion Joan Mir in 13th place on the Suzuki.
Miguel Oliveira took an inconspicuous 14th place in FP1 on his factory KTM, while his teammate Brad Binder took 16th and Valentino Rossi on the Petronas SRT Yamaha.
Franco Morbidelli’s replacement injury, Yamaha World Superbike rider Garrett Gerloff, was last 2.8 seconds behind the pace in his first dry MotoGP session after falling in the second half of the session.