Sachsenring MotoGP: Marquez fastest again from Smith

The reigning champion has won five races on the trot – his last two victories in the premier class – at the track.

Jorge Lorenzo set the early pace for Yamaha, swapping the top time with Marquez initially. Honda’s Dani Pedrosa very briefly went fastest before Marquez produced a P1 time of 1m21.823s.

Pedrosa’s response was just a fraction slower on 1m21.889s to go second.

Marquez then lowered the bar by a couple of tenths to 1m21.666s with 10 minutes to go. He went even faster on his final lap of the session, a 1m21.621s.

Tech 3 Yamaha’s Bradley Smith laid down some late flyers, fastest overall in two of the sectors while lapping right on the tail of Ducati’s Andrea Iannone, to jump up to P2 on 1m21.740s. Iannone took third.

Lorenzo produced a sequence of 1m22-dead times on his second run, while teammate Rossi struggled on the fringes of the top six, running over half a second off the pace. Lorenzo worked down to a 1m21.886s, ahead of Pedrosa.

Aleix Espargaro was sixth on the Suzuki on 1m22.095s.

Rossi ended the session in seventh, failing to improve on his time in the first session.

Scott Redding impressed again by going eighth on his Marc VDS Honda on 1m22.170s, which was fractionally slower than he achieved this morning.

Yonny Hernandez set the ninth-quickest lap on his Pramac Ducati.

Michael Laverty hopped off his Aprilia at Turn 13, after replacing Marco Melandri for this weekend.

Another replacement rider, Hiroshi Aoyama, suffered the session’s biggest tumble, falling from his AB Honda.