The Japan Times - Marquez tops Czech MotoGP practice as Martin returns

Martin, now riding for Aprilia, sat out the first three races of the year following two pre-season crashes and missed another seven after crashing at Qatar in April.

As Martin got to grips with resuming his day job it was Marquez who set the fastest time before a downpour marred the afternoon session.

Marquez overcame technical issues and a cancelled lap on a rainy Friday morning to clock 1min 54.606sec, getting within one hundredth of a second of his 2016 lap record.

The 32-year-old Spaniard on a factory Ducati leads the world championship standings with 344 points after 11 of the season's 22 races.

His younger brother Alex on Ducati's satellite Gresini bike is second with 261 points, ahead of Marc Marquez's Italian teammate Francesco Bagnaia with 197.

Recurrent rain prevented riders from capitalising on the freshly resurfaced tarmac of the circuit in the second Czech city of Brno, to which MotoGP is returning for the first time since 2020.

Marc Marquez was the only rider to squeeze under 2min 04sec in the afternoon practice which the downpour had delayed by 20 minutes.

France's Johann Zarco on a Honda came second ahead of compatriot Fabio Quartararo on a Yamaha.

Martin set the 17th quickest time in the morning, trailing Marquez by over 2.5 seconds, before improving to fifth in the afternoon.

Japan's Ai Ogura had a nasty spinning crash in the morning practice but was able to walk away from the gravel safety run-off area.

So were Italian Aprilia rider Marco Bezzecchi and Alex Marquez, who both took a tumble after losing traction in a puddle in the afternoon session.

K.Okada--JT