Zarco leads a test with two red flags and many crashes

At one hour and 48 minutes to six in the afternoon, the scheduled time for the conclusion of the first official MotoGP test of the season, which was held this Monday at the Jerez Circuit, a fall by the Aprilia test rider, Lorenzo Savadori, at turn 6, it caused the second red flag of the day when the Italian’s bike left a trail of oil at that point, which forced the stewards to clean the track, which kept the activity stopped for 40 minutes.

In the morning, shortly after the first hour of work, another red flag, this time due to a fall by Takaaki Nakagami, interrupted the activity for a few minutes. The Japanese was evacuated to the medical center and then traveled to Barcelona to undergo a CT scan due to severe pain in his right knee.

Johann Zarco set the best time of the day with a time of 1.37.136, achieved mid-morning, and that no one could improve, especially as the day progressed and the wind and clouds increased in the sky, which which lowered the ambient temperature. Behind the Frenchman, Brad Binder was the fastest with 1.37.294, while Fabio Quartararo was the third fastest of the day after completing 78 laps, of which only his teammate Franco Morbidelli (83) and the driver Honda’s Pol Espargaró (85) who gave the most and who hurried until the last minutes of the day to continue testing things on his RC213V.

Marc Márquez, for his part, finished the job after completing 60 laps with two and a half hours to go before the end of the time available to ride in Jerez. The Honda rider had three bikes in his garage earlier in the day, but soon discarded one of them and focused on the other two, posting a best time of 1.37.940.

The one who did the fewest laps at the end of the day (with the exception of the injured Nakagami, who did 16) was, precisely, the winner of Sunday’s race on this same track, Pecco Bagnaia, who closed the test with 24 laps before the hour to eat. With nothing new to try and with his right shoulder still sore from Saturday’s crash in Portimao , the Italian decided to fold sail ahead of time.

In addition to Nakagami’s fall, which was the first of the day, there were a good number of accidents during the day, all settled without regretting significant damage. Maverick Viñales crashed at turn 7 in the morning and went off the track at turn 1 at the last minute. Brad Binder, Zarco, Darryn Binder, Remy Gardner, Savadori and Alex Márquez also fell.

Test Jerez