German MotoGP: Jorge Martin edges out Marc Marquez in FP1

There were early issues for Marc Marquez who swiftly returned to pit lane following his out lap.

The 11-time race winner at Sachsenring managed to make his way back out after just six minutes of FP1.

At the front of the leaderboard, Jorge Martin was setting very fast times along with Alex Marquez.

After seeing Martin and brother Alex exchange fastest times, Marc Marquez made his mark as he went quickest by over two tenths despite having to overtake Pedro Acosta at the final corner.

Marquez set a time of 1:21.027s as only three other riders were within half a second of the eight-time world champion.

Comfortably into the 1m 20s barrier, Marquez increased his advantage to over half a second ahead of his brother, Alex.

It was a slow start to FP1 for Francesco Bagnaia, who was down in 16th place with nearly 20 minutes gone.

Looking set to challenge Marquez’s top time, Martin had two red sectors before running wide and into the gravel at turn eight.

Martin then made a similar mistake just a few corners later as his attempts to match Marquez saw him run off at turn one.

After setting just a couple of laps, Aleix Espargaro decided to pull out this weekend whilst the session was running.

Electing for new soft tyres to end the session, Martin managed to overhaul Marquez but only by a tenth of a second.

A very strong FP1 then came to a disappointing end for Marc Marquez as he crashed at turn one. 

There was more drama for Spanish riders late on as Martin returned to pit due to his air bag going off, while Acosta suffered a front-end washout at the final corner.