---
title: "Morbidelli the man to beat on Friday in Moto2"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2016/11/11/morbidelli-man-beat-friday-moto2/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Lewis Duncan"
section: "Moto2"
published: "2016-11-11T15:13:20Z"
modified: "2016-11-11T15:13:53Z"
---

# Morbidelli the man to beat on Friday in Moto2

Estrella Galicia Marc VDS’ Franco Morbidelli heads into Saturday’s track action as the man to beat after topping the second free practice session in Valencia for the Moto2 World Championship.

The Italian rider comes into this weekend seeking his first Grand Prix victory, and has made his intentions very clear over his target on Sunday. Morbidelli took over top spot on the time sheets midway through the session and never relinquished, ending the day with a 1m35.443s.

Takaaki Nakagami’s day didn’t start off brilliantly. A crash in FP1 five minutes in robbed him of track time and brought out the red flag. Though dropping liquid from his machine in the crash, his bike hadn’t suffered a major technical fault and the Japanese rider was able to get back out on track. Nakagami improved on his FP1 best by seven tenths of a second to a 1m35.568s, putting him second on this afternoon’s time sheets.

World Champion Johann Zarco comes into this weekend with the pressure off of him after wrapping up his second successive Moto2 title two weeks ago in Malaysia. With a move to Tech 3 in the MotoGP class on the cards for next season, the Frenchman will be looking to repay his much-loved Ajo Motorsport team with one last victory before he departs. Zarco ended FP2 third fastest, though has some work to do tomorrow to close the three-tenth gap to Morbidelli.

Julian Simon’s future in Grand Prix racing is up in the air. His name did not appear on the provisional entry list released earlier this week, making his home round this weekend potentially his last. The Sachsenring podium finisher ended the second session an impressive fourth fastest. Leopard Racing’s Danny Kent completed the top five.

Simone Corsi brushed off an early fall at Turn 2 to go sixth quickest on his Speed Up machine, five hundredths of a second quicker than Xavier Simeon on the same chassis. Sam Lowes, Jonas Folger and Alex Marquez rounded out the top 10, whilst FP1 fastest man Tom Luthi was 11th. However, the Swiss rider does head into tomorrow’s FP3 second on the combined time sheets by virtue of his FP1 time.

> Twitter: Believe it or not, that is… or was… @MattiaPasini’s #Moto2 machine. ![](https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/svg/1f631.svg)
>
> \#RiderOK #ValenciaGP https://t.co/EwOUNQLevY (@MotoGP)

Mattia Pasini has left his Italtrans mechanics with a lot of work to do overnight. The Italian rider lost the front-end of his bike going through the final corner and his Kalex destroyed itself in the gravel trap. Thankfully, he was unharmed and finished the session down in an unrepresentative 27th.

![2016-11-11-5](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2016/11/2016-11-11-5.png)