Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo carried on as he started in this afternoon’s second free practice session ahead of the Grand Prix of Valencia, topping the time sheets by an impressive three tenths of a second from Honda’s Marc Marquez.
Lorenzo was under lap record pace already in this morning’s session, setting a 1m31.045s to go nearly four tenths clear of the field. The Spaniard wasted no time in FP2 and went top straight away, though not getting too near his best from FP1.
After some back-to-back running of Michelin’s two different medium front tyres, Lorenzo settled on the new construction for his final assault on the time sheets, clocking a 1m30.463s. If there were any doubts surrounding his commitment to Yamaha on his final race with the Japanese manufacturer, they have been obliterated today.
Marquez was third fastest in a steady morning session for the World Champion, but ramped up his pace in FP2. The Honda rider may have been three tenths adrift in second, but his long run pace was quite stunning. Marquez was able to string together an impressive sequence of high 1m30s laps in the latter stages of the session.
Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales rounded out the top three on his GSX-RR, missing out on Marquez’ best by just five thousandths of a second on a 1m30.715s. Tech 3’s Pol Espargaro put in a storming lap to go fourth quickest and top satellite rider by quite a margin from Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso.
Aleix Espargaro did run inside the top three for a short while during the session, though will still be relatively happy with sixth on the Friday time sheets. Andrea Iannone, Valentino Rossi, Danilo Petrucci and Dani Pedrosa completed the top 10. With track and air temperatures at the Spanish circuit extremely cold in the morning, FP2 may have decided the running order for QP2.
Cal Crutchlow is battling through the pain of several broken bones from his Malaysian Grand Prix crash, and will be disappointed to have missed out on the top 10 by just a tenth of a second. Scott Redding will be equally disgruntled, as he needs to find half a second to get on terms with his Pramac teammate in ninth. Hector Barbera, Jack Miller and Eugene Laverty completed the top 15.
KTM’s Mika Kallio once again brought up the rear of the field, improving on his FP1 time by four tenths of a second to a 1m33.574s. The gap to the leaders has opened up to over three seconds, which won’t be what they wanted to see this afternoon. However, they have made it through their first day without getting a single scratch on the RC-16.
Comments.
Loading comments…