The Friday morning Free Practice 1 at the Barcelona circuit started with sunny weather. As it always is with this shorter session, all the riders went immediately on track. For this weekend, Honda brought Aleix Espargaro as a wild card, while Somkiat Chantra returned after a knee injury. The first measured lap times started between a range of 1:45 to 1:41s.

After the first lap, the top 5 looked as follows: Maverick Viñales, Marco Bezzecchi, Jack Miller, Marc Márquez and Johann Zarco. So far the session was chilled. The only small action that happened so far was when Fabio Di Giannantonio ran wide at Turn 9, causing a dirt cloud to lift behind him. The times got even faster, with riders breaking into the 1:39s. The first rider who got into a 1:39 was Alex Márquez before his brother Marc shortly after took the lead with a time of 1:39.198.

After 10 minutes in, there was the first yellow flag of the session, caused by Jack Miller who had crashed at Turn 10. The top 10 looked as following: Marc, Alex, Zarco, Bezzecchi, Pedro Acosta, Enea Bastianini, Miguel Oliveira, Luca Marini, Di Giannantonio, Franco Morbidelli. What stayed the same were the Márquez brothers at the top, improving their times.

After a short stop in the box, the riders started slowly returning on track. The top 5 looked as follows: Marc, Alex, Zarco, Bezzecchi and Acosta. Francesco Bagnaia was not doing well in this session, as he was mostly at the back of the grid. The majority of the riders chose soft tyres at the front and medium at the back. Michelin had even brought a new special hard tyre, but besides Rins who had tried it, no one had chosen it yet.

With barely 15 minutes left, Enea Bastianini had some technical issues with his bike, so he stopped near the marshals at Turn 1 and returned to the box. The top 5 looked as following: Marc, Alex, Zarco, Bezzecchi and Acosta. So far, Bezzecchi was holding his place strongly inside the top 5, while his teammate was outside the top 15. Bagnaia was trying to improve his time, which he managed to do, but it wasn’t enough for him to move forward, so he stayed in 20th place.

And with 10 minutes in, the riders returned for their attempts before the end of the session. The top 5 looked the same without a change. However, Ai Ogura managed to improve to 7th place, with Miguel Oliveira and Luca Marini going behind him. The top 10 was rounded out by Fermín Aldeguer. But that wasn’t for long, as Raul Fernandez jumped from the last places to 6th place.

With 3 minutes left, Maverick Viñales improved to 2nd place, with Binder in 5th. Pedro Acosta jumped to 1st place, taking the lead, with Johann Zarco taking 2nd place. Marc Márquez tried to improve, but he was unsuccessful, staying in 3rd place.