The MotoGP championship lands at the Red Bull Ring this weekend for the CryptoDATA Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich 2023. MotoGP returns after a short break in the season schedule. The playing field appears to remain dominated by Ducati but this isn’t the end of the story. The championship is very much not over with Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo) now only leading the championship by 41 points.
There may be a shake up at the top of the table after the dust settles this weekend. This is especially true if today’s FP1 results are any indication of what is to come for the weekend. In FP1 Johann Zarco ran fastest setting a 1m29.838 best lap. He was the only rider to dip into the 1m29s in this session. Second fastest went to Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha) which has unfortunately been an uncharacteristic occurrence for the former world champion. Quartararo and Yamaha have struggled to keep up with the strides made by Ducati this year. This coupled with some crash plagued races have ushered Quartararo to P11 in the championship. There is almost no hope of competing for a world title this year. Instead this year will be a building year as we know that Quartararo will return to MotoGP next year with Yamaha.
Full Practice Results are below
Current Championship Standings