The Gran Premio de Aragon got underway today for PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team, where track temperatures at MotorLand Aragon reached nearly 45C for Valentino Rossi and Jake Dixon, who ended the day 19th and 22nd.
A good start to FP1 saw Rossi inside of the top-ten early on, but a Turn 5 crash in the final 15 minutes of the session brought his morning to an early conclusion. His best time of 1min 50.299secs saw him end FP1 20th. After a steady start to the afternoon session, the Italian’s initial flying lap – 1min 48.649secs – at the end of FP2 placed him tenth. Unable to improve upon this, Valentino ended the session 18th and was 19th overall.
Dixon, who is in his second weekend in the premier class as stand-in for Franco Morbidelli, made good progress in the opening half of FP1 and consistently improved his time. The Brit ended the morning 22nd with a 1min 51.188secs lap. In the afternoon’s FP2 session, Jake opted to remain on the same tyres and didn’t do a time attack run. At the end of the second Free Practice session, Dixon was 22nd with a 1min 49.987secs lap.
Rossi and Dixon will be back out on track tomorrow at 9.55am local time (3.55pm MYT) for FP3, while the first of the two MotoGP Qualifying sessions will commence at 2.10pm local time (8.10pm MYT).