Barcelona MotoGP: Rossi fastest in opening practice

Honda's Marquez had an early pace advantage compared to his rivals as he took the lead with his first flyer, and maintained a significant gap with a couple of improvements.

He led by nearly a second with his 1m39.882s, which remained the benchmark until the final minute of the session.

Mugello winner Jorge Lorenzo, Cal Crutchlow, Andrea Iannone and Valentino Rossi all took turns in second, closing the gap to Marquez.

Rossi eventually surpassed the Spaniard as he improved with only a few seconds left on the clock with a 1m39.456s, using fresh soft tyres on the front and rear of his YZR-M1.

Marquez did not improve at the end and was also demoted by Andrea Dovizioso and Lorenzo, the Ducati factory teammates separated by one thousandth of a second in second and third.

Johann Zarco was half a tenth slower than Marquez in fifth, followed by fellow Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales.

Crutchlow ended up seventh ahead of Avintia Ducati's Tito Rabat and Iannone, whose progress was halted by a crash at Turn 10.

Iannone was the first rider to fall but others followed suit late on with Franco Morbidelli and Karel Abraham both crashing at Turn 2.

Jack Miller also had an incident as he tried to pass Bradley Smith into Turn 5 but ended up touching the Briton's KTM and falling - the Australian visibly frustrated with Smith after the incident.

Miller ended the session 10th ahead of Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro and Honda's Dani Pedrosa.

Wildcard Mika Kallio was the fastest KTM in 15th, beating Pol Espargaro, who was 18th, by less than a tenth.

Suzuki wildcard Sylvain Guintoli ended the session 24th, only ahead of Tom Luthi and Abraham.

FP1 results

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Laps	Time	Gap
1	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	19	1'39.456
2	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	18	1'39.803	0.347
3	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	18	1'39.804	0.348
4	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	21	1'39.882	0.426
5	5	Johann Zarco	Yamaha	19	1'39.933	0.477
6	25	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	21	1'40.114	0.658
7	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	18	1'40.159	0.703
8	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	20	1'40.264	0.808
9	29	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	20	1'40.274	0.818
10	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	17	1'40.310	0.854
11	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	17	1'40.388	0.932
12	26	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	19	1'40.454	0.998
13	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Yamaha	18	1'40.504	1.048
14	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	21	1'40.795	1.339
15	36	Mika Kallio	KTM	20	1'40.882	1.426
16	10	Xavier Simeon	Ducati	19	1'40.896	1.440
17	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	20	1'40.899	1.443
18	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	18	1'40.945	1.489
19	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	19	1'40.957	1.501
20	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	20	1'41.001	1.545
21	45	Scott Redding	Aprilia	20	1'41.038	1.582
22	38	Bradley Smith	KTM	19	1'41.194	1.738
23	21	Franco Morbidelli	Honda	14	1'41.350	1.894
24	50	Sylvain Guintoli	Suzuki	17	1'41.436	1.980
25	12	Thomas Luthi	Honda	21	1'41.438	1.982
26	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	15	1'42.159	2.703