Marquez and Lorenzo under lap record in opening practice

The most highly anticipated MotoGP race weekend in memory is finally underway and opening practice saw Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo both underneath the lap record in Valencia. The Spanish duo were comfortably faster than Dani Pedrosa.

Valentino Rossi, who will start at the back of the grid on Sunday, jumped to fifth at the end of the session but was over four tenths off the pace. Rossi’s challenge to take the title on Sunday will be huge and having gradually found pace throughout the session he looked more comfortably on his final lap of the morning but was piped by Andrea Dovizioso at the flag.

With the back of the grid penalty known in advance it will be interesting to see how much time Rossi devotes to his race simulations this weekend. For the first session he completed 21 laps and split his workload into three stints.