Everything that happened on strange Australia MotoGP Friday

Day one of MotoGP's Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island featured scares for championship contenders Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia, a complete washout of the first practice session and a red flag for a stray goose - plus Marc Marquez going fastest ahead of brother Alex.

Rain throughout the morning intensified during the Moto2 session just before the MotoGP field was due to come out. With significant standing water pooling and the rain not relenting, the start of the session was repeatedly delayed while the safety car explored conditions.

Eventually after two hours (and a weather tease when it looked like the rain might be easing enough to allow some running) the decision was taken to cancel the session outright. An extra 10 minutes will be added to the Saturday morning session before qualifying as some compensation after an initial idea of making the Friday afternoon session 20 minutes longer than usual was rejected.

The weather dramatically swung the other way by Friday afternoon, which was a huge relief to teams and Michelin as all parties feared going into the race weekend with no dry running on the resurfaced track.

But title contenders Martin and Bagnaia both had fraught starts to the session, and with more clouds looming they faced the worrying prospect of having to go through Q1 if they hadn't got things together.

Martin was in a huge pack of traffic on his first lap when he went down into the slow Turn 4 while trying to go down the inside of Fabio Quartararo, missing the Yamaha by a tiny fraction as he tucked the front of his Pramac Ducati while dodging out of the move.

Bagnaia meanwhile abandoned his first run and came back to the pits for a bike change, meaning neither title contender had set a time at all with 10 minutes gone and clouds darkening.

Then once both were on the track, a brief red flag for a goose wandering on the circuit interrupted their flying laps.

Finally both then got clear runs, with Martin shooting straight to ninth and then second behind early pacesetter Marquez, while Bagnaia took a little longer to inch his way through the teens and into the crucial top 10.

Bagnaia then had another scare in the closing minutes as he found himself back outside the Q2 places and struggling to improve, before making it from 13th to fifth - getting through the first sector just before a big crash for Trackhouse Aprilia stand-in rider Lorenzo Savadori at the first corner caused yellow flags.

Martin's final scare was of a different type - he narrowly avoided running over a rabbit on the way to fourth.

Marquez shrugged off the competition from Martin, Marco Bezzecchi and Maverick Vinales in particular to top the session for Gresini Ducati, and in the final seconds it became a team and Marquez sibling 1-2 as Alex shot up to second, 0.102 seconds off his brother. Bezzecchi and Vinales ended up third and sixth.

Brad Binder is the only KTM straight into Q2 after last-gasp crashes for both home hero Jack Miller (his second of a session in which he was also fastest for a while) and Pedro Acosta meant they were knocked out of top 10 spots.

Acosta fell on the sodden grass while trying to recover from running wide at Turn 4, which was pretty much exactly what Miller did in his first crash early on. His late shunt was a higher speed fall into Siberia.

Bezzecchi's VR46 team-mate Fabio di Giannantonio, Martin's Pramac team-mate Franco Morbidelli and leading Yamaha runner Alex Rins complete the initial Q2 pack - Rins edging team-mate Quartararo out by 0,015s.

It looked for a while like it might be Honda getting the shock underdog Q2 place as last year's Phillip Island winner Johann Zarco had a spell in second for LCR, but he fell to 14th.

Bagnaia's works Ducati team-mate Enea Bastianini ended up as the most significant name stuck in Q1, only 16th fastest at the end of the day.

PRACTICE RESULTS

1 Marc Marquez (Gresini Ducati)
2 Alex Marquez (Gresini Ducati)
3 Marco Bezzecchi (VR46 Ducati)
4 Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati)
5 Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati)
6 Maverick Vinales (Aprilia)
7 Brad Binder (KTM)
8 Fabio di Giannantonio (VR46 Ducati)
9 Franco Morbidelli (Pramac Ducati)
10 Alex Rins (Yamaha)
11 Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha)
12 Jack Miller (KTM)
13 Pedro Acosta (Tech3 GasGas)
14 Johann Zarco (LCR Honda)
15 Augusto Fernandez (Tech3 GasGas)
16 Enea Bastianini (Ducati)
17 Joan Mir (Honda)
18 Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia)
19 Luca Marini (Honda)
20 Taka Nakagami (LCR Honda)
21 Lorenzo Savadori (Trackhouse Aprilia)
22 Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia)