Schedl GP’s Philipp Oettl ended the first free practice session of the 2017 season top of the pile on his KTM, with Leopard Racing’s Joan Mir close behind. .
The German rider found himself a nice piece of clear track right at the end of the session, and used that to maximum effect to guide his KTM to a 2m06.981s. That put him 0.258s clear of Leopard’s Joan Mir, who switches to Honda power for 2017.
RBA Racing’s Gabriel Rodrigo completed the top three, but his participation in the rest of the weekend could be in doubt after a nasty highside at the final corner at the end of the session.
His incident caught Marcos Ramirez out, the Platinum Bay rider hitting the deck for a second time in FP1 following an early spill at Turn 2. However, he was still able to go sixth quickest on his KTM.
Rodrigo’s team-mate Juanfran Guevara was fourth fastest ahead of Moto3 returnee Romano Fenati, who comes into this weekend having topped the final test of the year in Qatar last week.
Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Bo Bendsneyder was four and a half tenths off the pace in seventh, with rookie Ayumu Sasaki close behind in eighth. Last year’s Qatar GP winner Niccolo Antonelli and Adam Norrodin completed the top 10.
Sky Racing VR46 KTM’s Nicolo Bulega got his season off to a slow start down in 11th ahead of Aron Canet. Livio Loi, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marco Bezzecchi rounded out the top 15.
