A calm and relaxed Johann Zarco declared he was ‘happy overall’ after breaking the circuit record on his Pramac Ducati as MotoGP returned to Spielberg for the AustrianGP.

The Frenchman recorded the session-topping 1’22.827 on his last lap of the morning, bettering his Pramac teammate, Jorge Martin’s pole time from the StyrianGP last weekend, for the second all-time lap record in as many weeks.

“Happy overall with the first session,” a laidback Zarco said on Friday evening.

“I got the strategy to use a soft rear tyre at the end of the first practice. I was feeling very good with the condition of the track and also the temperature was great to try a good lap time.

"I've been thinking that then in the afternoon was going to be super hot so that's why I wanted to use a chance already in FP1, and I've used it pretty well so that's positive,” he continued.

“It means the few things in setup we did has been working well, and also, I tried to still work on this confidence to use perfectly the bike, and this lap has been a pretty good lap. I save the Q2, at least for tomorrow - we'll see in FP3 how are the conditions but I'm ready to fight again if we need to improve it.

“In the afternoon the rain was coming, and it's a good practice always to do laps in the rain, then the end of the session is getting drier and this is the condition I really appreciate. Has been a good training in the afternoon but overall the morning was good work to apply what I could learn from the last week.

“The track conditions were pretty good and all the references we got from last week, they're also useful. We know in FP1 we have fresh body and good track conditions so that's why [I pushed], when there is the opportunity it was good to take it,” he said simply.