Pedro Acosta led Friday’s Practice session for the Austrian MotoGP Grand Prix, but the hour was interrupted by Alex Marquez’s crash. The Gresini Ducati rider fell on the straight linking Turns 1 and 2 at the Red Bull Ring with about 13 minutes left. Officials stopped the session for 11 minutes and 42 seconds while marshals removed the damaged motorcycle from the trackside. Marquez escaped injury and was able to resume once the session restarted.

Fermin Aldeguer put the second Gresini Ducati in second place, with Trackhouse Aprilia rider Ai Ogura third. Marc Marquez finished fourth ahead of Jorge Martin. Fabio Di Giannantonio was sixth and Brad Binder seventh, the KTM rider earning a direct route into Q2. Alex Marquez was classified eighth, followed by Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Quartararo. Bezzecchi’s ninth place also secured direct Q2 passage, while Quartararo completed the top ten.

Acosta’s pace was already evident in FP1, which he topped. About 30 minutes before the end of Practice, he fitted a fresh soft rear tyre and delivered three successive session-best laps. The supplied account gives two conflicting figures for his final lap time, so neither is presented here as definitive. The uncontested result is that the KTM rider led the session at the chequered flag, ahead of Aldeguer and Ogura.

Honda had no rider qualify directly for Q2. Luca Marini was the manufacturer’s fastest representative in 11th with a 1m28.821s lap, while Johann Zarco was 12th after an early fall at Turn 4. Pecco Bagnaia’s difficult run also continued: the account says his sequence of consecutive Q1 appearances had reached five. The session therefore left Acosta at the front, but preserved a mixed picture for the other manufacturers and a disrupted afternoon for Marquez.