Marc Marquez finished the first free practice of the Grand Prix of the Americas in first place with a lap time of 2:04.704. The World Champion was unbeatable during the session.
The FP1 started with a cloudy sky, but without risk of rain. An early technical problem saw Alvaro Bautista stopped in the first corner, so the team had to prepare the second bike. Marc Marquez was ahead in the timesheets in the first minutes of the session, followed by his teammate Dani Pedrosa.
Cal Crutchlow suffered of technical problems too and had to come back to pits pushing the bike. Valentino Rossi set the second fastest time with 27 minutes left on the clock. After all the riders went to the pits, they started a second run of laps. Marquez improved his time and stayed on the lead.
Meanwhile the rest of riders improved their times, Marquez set the fastest time lap after lap and was more than one second ahead of Rossi with 15 minutes to go. The Italian’s teammate Jorge Lorenzo continued struggling –now with the 2013 tyres– and was 10th. Aleix Espargaro, the surprise of Qatar, was 12th.
With less than 10 minutes left on the clock, the riders pitted and started their last run of the practice. Aleix Espargaro, with the softer tyre assigned to the Open bikes, set the second fastest time and was eight tenths slower than Marquez. Pedrosa finished third, followed by Rossi in fourth place.