Alex Marquez leads first 2023 MotoGP practice from Honda’s Mir

Gresini Ducati rider Alex Marquez topped the opening practice session of the 2023 MotoGP season at Portimao, leading the way on a year-old bike.

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Key moments:

> Marquez makes late soft-tyre push count

> Honda newcomer Mir impresses in second

> Favourites deceptively down the order

> Ducati 1-3-4-5-7-9

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Though sunny weather is expected for most of the weekend, a damp track greeted MotoGP riders ahead of the start of first practice – and contributed to the first crash of the official season happening immediately.

Slick tyres and spots of rain! ⚠️

Fortunately, @FrankyMorbido12 is back onboard shortly afterwards! 👍#PortugueseGP 🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/CQqsI4h5qd

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) March 24, 2023

Yamaha rider Franco Morbidelli was among the riders exploring the conditions early on and swiftly highsided off his M1 at the Turn 8 right-hander, albeit managing to then remount and bring the bike back in.

That fall seemed to dampen the enthusiasm for extensive early running, but soon enough riders hit the track en masse, with Gresini Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio following Morbidelli’s lead by getting chucked off his Desmosedici GP22.

Coming into the final minutes of the session, Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin – who has opted for a different aero configuration to start this season compared to the factory team’s bikes – led the way on a 1m39.206s, but by the end he’d been shuffled down to seventh.

This, however, came as several riders made use of fresh rubber, already attempting push laps on the soft rear, presumably in an effort to maximise their position in the classification in case FP2 is weather-disrupted – as the combination of FP1 and FP2 will determine 10 of the 12 riders getting to run in Q2 on Saturday morning.

Marquez was quickest of those to opt for a fresh soft, outpacing several of his Desmosedici GP22 peers – but it was actually a Honda that ran him closest, that belonging to newcomer Joan Mir.

Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi completed the top four for VR46 Ducati, ahead of Martin’s Pramac team-mate Johann Zarco and the lead Aprilia of Maverick Vinales.

Behind Martin were the champion trio of Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha), Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Marc Marquez (Honda), all forgoing a late run on a fresh soft rear – though Quartararo did swap to a new front tyre.

With four manufacturers featuring in the top eight, only KTM was left out, with Jack Miller its top representative in 12th – 0.006s behind Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro, who had surgery in the lead-up to the opener to address an arm fibrosis but expects to be fully fit throughout the weekend.

The rest of the KTMs beside Miller were well towards the back, with Brad Binder specifically a potentially alarming 22nd given he was 2.2s off the pace and half a second behind penultimate place.

Practice 1 Results