Asia News TheFoxPosts.com

Martin, who comes to Australia 18 points adrift of title rival Francesco Bagnaia after his crash in Indonesia last weekend, set the pace in Friday morning's opening 45-minute session with a best time of 1m29.039s. The Spanish rider commanded the timesheets for almost the entire session, becoming the first man to break the 90-second barrier with a 1m29.882s that remained unbeaten until the final few minutes. Aprilia man Maverick Vinales, second to Bagnaia in Indonesia, briefly surpassed Martin's benchmark with a 1m29.777s with three minutes left on the clock. But Martin responded almost immediately by lowering his best to a 1m29.266s before posting a 1m29.039s to lead the field by a staggering seven tenths of a second. Vinales was demoted to third in the closing stages by Tech3 Gas Gas rookie Augusto Fernandez, who set a 1m29.759s at the very end of the session to beat Vinales by just 0.018s. Brad Binder was fourth-fastest aboard his KTM on a...

Martin, who arrives in Japan only 13 points behind fellow Ducati man Francesco Bagnaia, topped the timesheets with a best effort of 1m45.192s, which was enough to top the session by 0.138s from Augusto Fernandez. That came at the end of a run of three successive improvements for the Pramac rider, who knocked Bagnaia off the head of the standings with a 1m45.509s before finding just over three tenths over his next two laps. But Martin's run came to an abrupt end when he appeared to misjudge his braking for the Turn 3 left-hander, running into the gravel and suffering a relatively low-speed tumble with nine minutes to go. He was able to return to action for the final minutes of the session, but didn't improve his time further. Behind surprise package Fernandez on the Tech3 GasGas, Marco Bezzecchi made a late improvement on his VR46 Ducati to jump up to third, 0.318s off the pace established by Martin. Factory Ducati rider Bagnaia was fourth- fa...