Jorge Martin enjoyed a strong but nervy start to a crucial Thailand MotoGP weekend as he topped the timesheets at the end of Friday Practice, but not without taking a trip through the gravel trap too.

The Spaniard, who with four rounds and eight races remaining trails Pecco Bagnaia by 27 points in the overall standings, hit the front in the closing stages with a top time attack of 1m 29.826s.

However, just moments after setting the benchmark he’d find himself crashing out at Turn 3 in what will be a nervous reprisal of his exit from the Indonesian MotoGP while leading.

Even so, he remained quickest of all in a session dominated by the European manufacturers again with Aprilia Racing duo Maverick Vinales and Aleix Espargaro chasing him in second and third as the only other riders able to get under 1m 30secs.

A quartet of Ducatis followed up between fourth and seventh with Australian MotoGP winner Johann Zarco complementing his Pramac Racing team-mate in fourth, ahead of Mooney VR46 Racing duo Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi.

Crucially, seventh went to Bagnaia, the points’ leader cracking the top ten to assure himself safe passage through to Q2 directly, an improvement on his Friday afternoon performances in Indonesia and Australia.

Fabio Quartararo broke the European deadlock in eighth place on the factory Yamaha, ahead of Brad Binder and Augusto Fernandez, the latter GasGas Tech3 rider reaching Q2 automatically for the first time this season.

Behind them, Marc Marquez picked up a painful shoulder after being clipped by a wing that had worked itself off Martin’s Ducati en route to 11th, ahead of Franco Morbidelli and Jack Miller