Marc Marquez set the fastest time in Friday's practice session at Sachsenring for the MotoGP German Grand Prix. The reigning world champion, riding his factory Ducati, completed a time of 1,19.394 seconds, 0.166 seconds ahead of Trackhouse Aprilia rider Raul Fernandez. Fabio Di Giannantonio was third, 0.280 seconds behind, and Alex Marquez fourth, 0.317 seconds behind; thus, three Ducati riders were in the top four.
The course of the session: Aprilia's lead passed to Ducati.
The hour-long session was led by Aprilia's Marco Bezzecchi with a fast start; he surpassed Fernandez's FP1 time to take the lead, improving his time to 1m20.646s. This time held for about half the session. In the final quarter of the session, VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio overtook all his rivals with a lap time of 1m20.104s. Marc Marquez then took the lead with 14 minutes to go, being the first to break the 1m20s barrier. Although Di Giannantonio briefly regained the lead with a time of 1m19.674s, Marquez solidified his position at the top with a 0.166-second lead thanks to his final fast lap in the last three minutes.
Miller finished fifth, while Bagnaia was just outside the critical threshold.
Jack Miller, on his Pramac Yamaha, completed an impressive lap to secure fifth place with a 0.447-second lead. Immediately behind Miller were Aprilia riders Ai Ogura (sixth, +0.512s), Bezzecchi (seventh, +0.602s), and Jorge Martin (eighth, +0.617s). Pedro Acosta on his factory KTM was ninth (+0.632s), while Franco Morbidelli on his VR46 secured direct entry into Q2 with a fast lap in the final moments of the session, placing tenth (+0.638s).
The most striking result was the setback for two-time world champion Francesco Bagnaia. The factory Ducati rider dropped to 13th place (+0.738s), behind Tech 3 KTM's Enea Bastianini (11th, +0.651s) and Red Bull KTM's Brad Binder (12th, +0.674s). The yellow flag waved after Bastianini's crash at turn 9 in the final minutes of the session may have negatively impacted Bagnaia's final lap; however, the track was cleared early enough for the riders to complete their fast laps.
Luca Marini finished 14th in the Honda HRC (+0.820s), while Fabio Quartararo of Yamaha Factory Racing was 15th, just 0.004 seconds behind (+0.824s). Marini's teammate, Joan Mir, was classified 16th after going off track in the last three minutes (+0.834s). Toprak Razgatlıoğlu of Yamaha finished 19th with a time of 1m20.861s.