11.42am – Our LIVE coverage of the FP1 MotoGP in Assen ends here, thanks for following it with us. The appointment is at 3pm with the second LIVE of the day for FP2, which as always will assign the 10 places for direct access to Q2. Stay Tuned!
11.40 – Pecco Bagnaia doesn’t usually get off to a great start on race weekends, in fact at the end of FP1 he often finds himself far from the best, only to then improve significantly in the subsequent sessions. But today in Assen Pecco put his signature on FP1, ahead of Marc Marquez, his future teammate in the Ducati Factory. A little taste of the future, probably.
Raul Fernandez closes the virtual front row with his Trackhouse Aprilia and collects exactly one tenth from Bagnaia, while behind him is Fabio Quartararo, who as soon as he finds a barely favorable track with his Yamaha, goes wild, always proving that he hasn’t lost a shred of his talent despite a less than exciting technical picture. Vinales and Aleix Espargarò close the second row, confirming the performance of the Aprilias in Assen, while Fabio Di Giannantonio, who had actually set the best time of the session, then canceled due to a very slight cut in the last chicane, finished 7th. Also in the top ten was Alex Marquez, 8th ahead of Binder and Jorge Martìn, less brilliant than usual today.
11.33am – Di Giannantonio’s time is cancelled, so Bagnaia finishes ahead of Marc Marquez and Raul Fernandez, with Quartararo setting the 4th time. The ranking
11.31 – Marc misses the last chicane and remains 3rd, Quartararo improves and is still 5th but just under three tenths away.
11:30 – Nice jump for Fabio Di Giannantonio who puts himself in front of everyone! The checkered flag waves, but Marquez is still on the track with two red helmets. It’s not over.
11:29 – Raul Fernandez scores the 2nd time! Quartararo is going very fast, he gives a flash and moves into 5th position. Marc Marquez 2nd, the standings are changing rapidly in these last moments.
11.28am – Alex Marquez 3rd, while Quartararo also set a good time and is now 6th, half a second behind on his Yamaha.
11.27 – Raul Fernandez is improving and has recently been offering very convincing performances with the Trackhouse Aprilia. Raul now climbs to 4th place behind Vinales!
11:26 – Pecco doesn’t improve, but runs less than a tenth from his best reference. He has a monstrous pace. Marc Marquez now launches himself to try to oust him from the top of the rankings.
11.25am – Morbidelli’s weekend didn’t start very well, as he was incisive at Mugello with Pramac’s Ducati. Franco is now 14th. In the meantime, other red helmets for Bagnaia in the first two sectors.
11:23 – Red helmet for Bagnaia in the second sector, maybe Pecco can improve his benchmark even more. Nothing to do, but now he’s back on track.
11:22 – Bagnaia is back on track, having had an excellent FP1. Pecco usually takes a while to get going, but in Assen he started off very fast.
11.20am – Acosta is not performing very well, however, as he is now 14th, more than a second behind Bagnaia’s best reference.
11.18am – Aleix Espargarò is riding strong and is now up to 8th position on his Aprilia. There are about 10 minutes left until the checkered flag, the last moments to try to climb the rankings in this FP1.
11:16 – Spectacular slow motion of Vinales controlling his Aprilia as he changes direction with the front slightly pointing towards the sky!
11:15 – Nice leap forward for Fabio Di Giannantonio, who is now 7th, while Vinales is doing even better, now 2nd behind Bagnaia. But Marc Marquez arrives and knocks him out, now he is 2nd. The standings
11:13 – Bagnaia improves further, now the reference is 1’32’401.
11:12 – Alex Marquez improves further, but remains second behind Bagnaia. Quartararo also improved, now 9th, while Alex Rins is suffering a lot, only 22nd at the moment.
11:10 – Raul Fernandez climbs to the top of the standings but is knocked off by Alex Marquez. Bagnaia, however, crosses the finish line with an excellent 1’32’625 and takes back the first position. Binder is finally riding better and closes his lap with the 6th fastest time.
11:08 – Fortunately, it’s a long shot without consequences for Marco Bezzecchi, who emerges unscathed from a potentially disastrous mistake.
11.05am – Bagnaia returns to the track, having had its best reference cancelled.
11:02 – Many drivers stopped in the pits at the end of the first run, Joan Mir tries to improve and is now 19th. The best Honda rider in the standings is Zarco, 15th now. Always pitch black for HRC.
11:00 – Pedro Acosta now 10th and by far the best KTM rider in the standings. The RC16 often seems to suffer more than it should, except with this impressive talent. Binder is only 20th, Miller even 22nd.
10:58 – Bastianini rises to 4th place, while Bezzecchi is now 6th. Aleix Espargarò is now 14th after having a difficult start to the session.
10:57 – Marc Marquez is filing the benchmark also because the time was taken from Bagnaia, perhaps due to a cut on the green. Marc is on top ahead of Jorge Martìn, who is quickly getting closer.
10:55 – Here is the standings with about 35 minutes to go in FP1.
10:54 – Bagnaia is the first driver to go under the 33 wall, lapping in 1’32’820. Bastianini climbs to 7th position with Quartararo who makes a move with the Yamaha and is 4th.
10:53 – Marquez improves to almost touch the 33 mark, his time is 1’33’004, but Bagnaia scores more red helmets.
10:53 – Marc Marquez improves further, now the reference is 1’33’693 and he is starting to be quite fast. Alex Marquez is second again following his brother on the track.
10:52 – Bagnaia further improves his benchmark, Raul Fernandez moves up to third with Vinales 4th. Lots of red helmets, times are dropping fast.
10:51 – Marc Marquez significantly lowers the benchmark, with his brother Alex following him on the track.
10:50 – The first references arrive from the track, with Jorge Martìn who climbs to the top of the standings ahead of Raul Fernandez and Pecco Bagnaia.
10:48 – Maybe there was a problem with his RS-GP, Aleix pushed back to the garage.
10:46 – A small hitch for Aleix Espargarò, who perhaps makes a mistake in releasing the clutch and stalls the bike immediately, causing it to fall to the ground (gently) in the pitlane. Aleix then stops immediately.
10.45 – Green light, the Dutch MotoGP weekend begins!
10:43 – Taking over one of the Aprilia seats will be Jorge Martìn, current leader of the standings with the Ducati of Pramac. The Spaniard has not digested Ducati’s decision to promote Marquez, but he will certainly find a bike in Aprilia that is up to his talent.
10:42 – Here’s another rider who will change colors in 2025, namely Maverick Vinales. The Top Gun will try in KTM Tech3 to become the first rider in the history of MotoGP to win on bikes from 4 different brands.
10.41 – Marc Marquez is looking for concentration, who will be Pecco Bagnaia’s teammate in Ducati in 2025. Marc is still chasing his first victory with the Desmosedici.
10:40 – Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of MotoGP FP1 at Assen! Luckily the sun is shining on the Dutch track, perfect conditions with a temperature of 20 degrees. Just a few clouds, but no threat of rain for this session.
The historic Assen track hosts the eighth round of the 2024 MotoGP world championship and for the first time in several seasons it seems that particularly mild weather may accompany the riders during the three-day Dutch race. Jorge Martìn is still leader in the championship, with Pecco Bagnaia who however reduced his gap to 17 points after the Mugello weekend and currently seems to be in a state of grace. Behind the two, there is a Marc Marquez who, despite having shown that he has not lost his speed, has not yet been able to win his first race with Ducati.
In any case, Marc has earned the official bike for 2025 and perhaps the fact of being able to race with a free mind will also give him the peace of mind needed for the last necessary step. A scenario which, among other things, he also shares with Jorge Martìnwho will go to Aprilia, and Enea Bastianini, who is currently still 4th in the world championship ahead of Acosta and in 2025 will join the Spaniard in KTM in the Tech3 team.
Overall in 6th place is Maverick Vinales, another rider who now knows his future, also in this case with KTM, and has always been very fast at Assen. Aprilia has always been very strong here in the last three seasonsso it is plausible that Aleix Espargarò, now 8th overall, could also play the role of outsider.
Our LIVE commentary of the FP1 MotoGP in Assen will start a few minutes before 10.45am, Stay Tuned!
This is the general ranking:
