MotoGP™ engines roared on Friday at the Red Bull Ring, as Free Practice 1 kicked off an exciting Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich. Racing on Pierer Mobility’s lands, Red Bull GASGAS Tech3’s Pedro Acosta and Augusto Fernandez were eager to perform well in Styria. It was a rather eventful day for rookie star Acosta who crashed three times overall, a dramatic day ended by a last second exit from the top 10, that saw him miss out on a direct Q2 ticket by a narrow margin of 0.027 seconds. Fernandez placed his GASGAS RC16 in 15th in the timesheets.

Extremely motivated to do well in Austria on his MotoGP™ debuts on his manufacturer’s lands, there was Pedro Acosta who started his day in a rather dramatical way, as we saw the #31 crashing twice during the morning session, with his second at Turn 4 briefly bringing out the red flag. Rider ok, but bike not ok at all. Thanks to the great work from his squad, the Shark was back on track right on time as 15:00 marked the start of a hot Practice. There was more drama for the rookie with a third crash halfway into the session, but he quickly ran back to his pit box to try heading back on track. As the usual 'fifteen minutes left' bell rang for the time attacks, Pedro Acosta was back at it and lapped a strong 1’29.560 placing him provisional in the top 3, but with ten minutes left on the clock, we weren’t done yet. Five minutes left, the shark was in P8 as he gained a bit more with a 1'29.308, 0.391 seconds from the top of the timesheets, when all riders rushed on track for one final time attack session, the most awaited one. The rookie did not improve afterwards, and looked Q2-bound, but that was until a very late lap from Brad Binder took the rookie out of contention. Acosta missed Q2 by 0.027 seconds, finishing Friday in 11th. A key Q1 session awaits the Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 rider on Saturday morning as he aims to place his GASGAS RC16 within the first rows on the grid.

After some fun during media day with vintage motorcycles, Augusto Fernandez was happy to jump back on his RC16 to face the challenging Red Bull Ring, its long straights and hard-braking corners. The Spaniard lapped a 1’31.030 during the opening session to finish 22nd of the FP1. In the afternoon, the #37 found some improvements to grab a few hundredths here and there, and halfway through, Fernandez’ early 1’30.545 had him more than one second away from the fastest laps. In his final efforts, Fernandez clocked in a 1'29.762 that placed him in P15. The Spaniard will have one last Free Practice tomorrow morning to get ready for a key qualifying stage, just before the Tissot Sprint in the afternoon, at 15:00 local time (GMT+2).