Terol displays immediate strength on return

Nico Terol’s return from injury could not have gone much better for the Spaniard as he set the fastest time in the first practice at Brno with a fast lap of 2’08.010. the Bancaja Aspar rider, who missed the last round at Sachsenring due to the injuries he sustained in a crash at Catalunya, was strong in the session as he improved his time by half a second towards the end.

That placed him an impressive 0.507s ahead of team-mate Bradley Smith who with a solid penultimate lap rose to second on the timesheet, ahead of Championship leader Marc Márquez. The Red Bull Ajo Motorsport rider had a crash at the very end which resulted in a dislocation of the left shoulder.

Pol Espargaró (Tuenti Racing), Esteve Rabat (Blusens-STX) and Danny Webb (Andalucia Cajasol) completed the top six, with the British rider avoiding a nasty high side halfway through by managing to control his Aprilia machine admirably before going down gently when he ran off at turn ten.

Randy Krummenacher (Stipa-Molenaar Racing), Sandro Cortese (Avant Mitsubishi Ajo), Efrén Vázquez (Tuenti Racing) and Johann Zarco (WTR San Marino Team) were all inside the top ten. Simone Grotzkyj (Fontana Racing) experienced the only other mishap of the session when he ran off with 15 minutes to go.