Austrian GP Practice Results

After a special and historic Grand Prix at Silverstone, MotoGP heads to the Red Bull Ring this weekend to contest the eleventh round of the 2024 season. On Friday, ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia was the fastest rider, on what was a positive day for Repsol Honda: Joan Mir was ninth in the morning and Luca Marini sixteenth in the afternoon.

An eventful day in Spielberg ended with the final stretch of the afternoon session run by Bagnaia, as the pace was upped in the closing stages. He set the track record to take the top spot.

Behind him, Franco Morbidelli, Jorge Martín, Marc Márquez, Brad Binder, Álex Márquez, Aleix Espargaró, Maverick Viñales, Marco Bezzecchi and Enea Bastianini went directly into Q2.

Changes and improvements for Repsol Honda

There was a positive start for Repsol Honda at the Red Bull Ring. With assistance for the second half of the season and the presence of Stefan Bradl as a Wild Card, both Luca Marini and Joan Mir showed improvement.

Mir managed to get into the Top 10 of Free Practice 1 for the first time this season. In the afternoon, yellow flags and exceeding the track limit relegated him to the final positions of the timesheets. He placed 24th.

Marini, much faster in the afternoon practice, closed the first day with a creditable sixteenth position, just 1.3 seconds off the top spot. He was only 1 second off second placed Morbidelli.

Saturday sees qualifying and the sprint race for the MotoGP riders in Austria.

2024 Austrian GP Practice Results

Statements

Joan Mir

“The new item we brought today was a positive step for us and shows we have found a direction to go. I was feeling very good this morning, and also in the afternoon honestly, we tried the hard front and a very used rear medium – our lap times and pace were quite good like this. When we put the new tyre for our time attack, we had a strange feeling with the bike and there was a lot of traffic and yellow flags. This circuit you have to be very precise, it’s very easy to run wide with the heavy braking and you find a lot of other riders and flags because of that. Our position doesn’t show our real potential.”

Luca Marini

“We had another good day, and I am very happy that we are able to make another improvement to the bike. It’s important to remain focused on the steps that we are taking and that there is progress being made. If we can take something positive like this from every GP, it’s encouraging. Conditions today were a bit tricky, there’s not a lot of grip but we’re still able to make improvements. Certainly we have more to do and we need to keep working to stay close to everyone else. Let’s see what’s possible to do on Saturday.”