Moto2 Phillip Island, FP1: Folger is the fastest, many crashes

GP Australia Moto2 Free Practice 1 – The first free practice session of the Moto2 class at Phillip Island was dominated by the weather.

The riders took to the track in winter temperatures and pouring rain, which made the asphalt of the Australian circuit extremely treacherous. Many crashes, including those of Mattia Pasini, Franco Morbidelli and Luca Marini.

The fastest in these conditions was Jonas Folger, who stopped the clock at a time of 1:47.629. Behind the German rider we find the 2015 world champion of the Moto3 class Danny Kent, 0.169s behind.

Third time for world championship leader Johann Zarco, who preceded the best of the Italian riders, Lorenzo Baldassarri, 0.506s off the top.

Alex Rins, second in the championship, 21 points behind Zarco, set the fifth fastest time ahead of the Japanese Takaaki Nakagami, the Malaysian Hafizh Syahrin and Jesko Raffin.

Closing out the Top Ten are Xavi Vierge and Remy Gardner, son of Wayne, world champion in the 500cc class in 1987 and protagonist of a bad misadventure at Motegi. Wayne is in fact still in Japan at the police station, after on the Sunday morning of the race he had had an argument with other people over a mirror-to-mirror "touch" between two cars.

Returning to the time rankings, Simone Corsi is seventeenth, Franco Morbidelli nineteenth, Mattia Pasini twenty-second and Luca Marini twenty-third.