Practice conditioned by the weather has by now become a constant factor of recent MotoGP rounds. Even in Austria, the first day began on dry asphalt but under looming clouds which obviously influenced the teams' plans.

Aleix Espargaró, not entirely at ease in the early laps of FP1, continued working on the setup for his RS-GP throughout the session, using only one set of tyres and without ever attempting the final time attack in view of qualifying as almost all the other riders on the track did. His fifteenth place time in FP1 therefore did not worry the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini, a sensation that was confirmed by Aleix's outstanding performance in FP2. After the rain, the Austrian track dried out progressively during the second session, allowing him to improve his time by almost one second. His 1'24.726 earned him ninth place in the combined standings and provisionally sends him straight through to Q2 tomorrow.

There was a lot of work for Sam Lowes, skilfully shaving off almost a half a second from one session to the next and eighteenth in the combined standings with a time of 1'25.270.