Marc Marquez leads dramatic Friday at Phillip Island

Marc Marquez has started his quest for a fifth Phillip Island win in the Qatar Airways Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix 2024 by setting the fastest time in Friday’s practice session.

In what became the only practice session for the MotoGP™ teams – and one that was red-flagged because of a goose on the circuit – the Spaniard lapped the 4.4km track in a time of 1m27.770s, to be 0.102s clear of his younger brother Alex Marquez, who pulled out a rapid lap right at the end of the session.

The third fastest was Italian Marco Bezzecchi, meaning three Ducati GP23s led the way over the newer GP24 models for the first time all season.

Championship leader Jorge Martin was fourth fastest, in spite of dropping his Ducati on his first lap of the track and then almost hitting a rabbit, while title rival and World Champion Pecco Bagnaia was immediately behind him in fifth place.

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Maverick Viñales was the best ‘non-Ducati’ on his factory Aprilia in sixth place, ahead of KTM’s Brad Binder, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Franco Morbidelli (both on Ducatis).

In a remarkable 10th place was Alex Rins, who is still recovering from injuries and who had a terrible race last time out in Japan. The 2022 Phillip Island winner tipped his Yamaha teammate Fabio Quartararo out of the top 10, meaning he must participate in Saturday’s first qualifying session.

So will Australian Jack Miller, who had two falls in the session, the second of which prevented him from setting a final lap time that could have pushed him through. So will Pedro Acosta, the star rookie in 13th place ahead of defending race winner Johann Zarco, who was the leading Honda rider.

The one-hour opening practice session, which the teams and Pirelli were counting on to provide information about the resurfaced track, was delayed multiple times until it was finally cancelled. Then the afternoon session was originally extended by 20 minutes to 80 minutes, only to be reset to 60 minutes again. 

For much of the session riders had to walk a tightrope, to complete enough laps to provide set-up and tyre wear information about the recently-resurfaced track, but to run some fast laps to try to qualify straight into the second of Saturday’s all-important qualifying sessions.