Johann Zarco gave the celebrating Pramac Racing team an early boost at the start of a another potentially landmark weekend after topping the timesheets in Free Practice 1 for the Valencia MotoGP finale.

Less than a week after the Italian outfit became the first independent team to clinch the overall MotoGP Teams' Championship title, Pramac arrives in Spain with its attentions set firmly on making more history with Riders' Championship title contender Jorge Martin.

He will have his work cut out, however, as he stares down a 21-point deficit to Pecco Bagnaia with just a possible 37-points on the table across Saturday's Sprint Race and Sunday's main GP.

In a chilly but sunny start to proceedings at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo, however, it was Zarco who'd fly the flag for Pramac with a session-topping effort of 1m 30.191secs coming right at the end of the 45-minute session.

Heading up a Ducati 1-2-3-4, Zarco - competing in his final race for Pramac ahead of his switch to LCR Honda for the 2024 MotoGP season - swept in to topple Fabio di Giannantonio from the head of the timesheets, the Italian still very much with momentum on his side following victory in Qatar last weekend.

Of the title contenders, Martin was comfortably up on Pecco Bagnaia come the end of FP1 with the Spaniard turning in the third quickest time - just under 0.3s adrift of his team-mate - while his factory Ducati rival was a low key 13th, 0.8s off the top spot.

Marco Bezzecchi completed the Ducati quartet out front in fourth, ahead of 'best of the rest' Maverick Vinales on the factory Aprilia.

Twelve months after ceding his MotoGP World Championship crown to Bagnaia in Valencia, Fabio Quartararo enjoyed a positive start to proceedings with a late move up the order to go sixth quickest aboard the factory Yamaha, the Frenchman followed by another title-winner in seventh place Marc Marquez.

Augusto Fernandez in eighth earned him status as the best-placed KTM rider aboard the GasGas-branded RC16, ahead of Enea Bastianini and Alex Marquez, the latter of which suffered a fast crash at Turn 1 just ten minutes into the session.

Indeed, with cool morning temperatures throwing a curve ball into proceedings after a run of sweltering events in Qatar, Malaysia and Thailand, there were falls too for Joan Mir and Takaaki Nakagami, the pair adding to Honda's eye-watering 2023 crash tally with offs at Turn 2 and Turn 8 respectively.

2023 Valencia MotoGP, Circuit Ricardo Tormo - Results after Practice 1

Friday - Conditions: Sunny