Aprilia came to the island of Lombok and laid down the law, with Raul Fernandez smashing the lap record to lead a 1-2-3 for the Italian marque in Practice at Mandalika, as Autosport reports. The Trackhouse rider was relentlessly fast all day long, leaving only the factory riders able to get within half a second of his pace.
That elite chasing group consisted of Marco Bezzecchi and Jorge Martin, while Pedro Acosta on the KTM and Marc Marquez on the Ducati booked their direct tickets into Qualifying 2 with fourth and fifth places respectively. Crucially, all the title contenders made sure of their Q2 spots, though Acosta and Marquez both carry a considerable lap time deficit back to their garages to ponder overnight.
Behind them, Fabio Di Giannantonio grabbed sixth-fastest for VR46 Ducati, with team-mate Franco Morbidelli securing ninth to join him in the Q2 mix. But the real theater of the afternoon belonged to Fabio Quartararo, who wowed onlookers by delivering the seventh-fastest time despite suffering a violent tumble through the gravel midway through the session. He limped away from the fall, spent a few minutes nursing his left wrist in the factory Yamaha garage, and then bravely emerged to improve his time and book his passage.
Others rode their luck right to the wire. Alex Marquez was fortunate to hold onto a top 10 place with Gresini Ducati despite crashing with a couple of minutes remaining, aided by the resulting yellow flags. Late falls for Alex Rins and Enea Bastianini also brought out yellows, which ultimately helped Francesco Bagnaia dodge trouble on the second factory Ducati and sneak into tenth spot right at the very end.
It was a drastically different story for Fermin Aldeguer, whose day was an absolute disaster. The Gresini rider endured a morning crash, another early in the Practice session, and then an apparent technical issue just when he needed to push for laps, leaving him well outside the top 10.
He wasn't the only one suffering. The only Aprilia not flying on Friday was the Trackhouse entry of Ai Ogura, who fell in the morning and struggled to find both speed and a clear track, while Bastianini racked up two falls in the afternoon session to cap off a miserable day for the Tech3 KTM rider.
