Maverick Vinales led the way in opening practice for the Dutch TT at Assen, the Yamaha man leading Honda’s Pol Espargaro by just over a tenth-of-a-second.
Vinales-who is running team-mate Fabio Quartararo’s set-up this weekend as he looks to overcome his recent performance woes-chipped away throughout the session as he continually lowered the benchmark for his rivals to beat.
A final time attack in the closing minutes saw him post a 1:33.072s tour, with Espargaro not lapping far behind as he also tries to find the speed he has struggled to capture so far in his maiden year at Honda.
Pol lead the way on a 1:33.392s shortly prior to Vinales’ final push, improving to a 1:33.183s on his final attempt as he slotted into a solid second behind the M1 racer.
Alex Rins featured towards the head of the timesheets for Suzuki in third ahead of series leader Quartararo, while Takaaki Nakagami made it two Honda’s in the top five on his LCR-run example.
Johann Zarco was sixth for Pramac Ducati ahead of Danilo Petrucci, the Tech 3 KTM pilot showing encouraging early pace as he started the Dutch TT weekend as the fastest of the Austrian manufacturers riders.
Aleix Espargaro was eighth overall on his Aprilia ahead of German Grand Prix victor Marc Marquez, while Lorenzo Savadori came out the blocks well on the second Aprilia to complete the top ten.
Factory Ducati pairing Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia were 11th and 12th respectively ahead of reigning MotoGP world champion Joan Mir, while factory KTM duo Miguel Oliveira and Brad Binder once again started off their weekend’s further down the times- the former 14th with the latter ending up 16th just behind Valentino Rossi.
Garrett Gerloff-who replaces an injured Franco Morbidelli at Petronas SRT alongside Rossi this weekend- was the final classified rider after being the only man to crash during the 45-minute test as he tried the learn the Assen venue, the American having never visited the circuit prior to the event.
The GRT Yamaha World Superbike racer-who makes his second MotoGP appearance after stepping in for Rossi during Friday practice at the Valencia GP at the end of last season-displayed promising speed though as soon re-joined the action, posting a 1:35.981s by the end to sit just four-tenths down on Luca Marini ahead.
