Leopard Racing’s Joan Mir continued to lead the way in second free practice for the Moto3 field at Termas de Rio Hondo, ending Friday with a comfortable advantage of 0.564s over the field.
The Spanish rider was on top form in the opening round of the season in Qatar two weeks ago, and has shown no signs of slowing down so far in Argentina. Mir used the traffic around him to great effect in the closing minutes and shot to the top of the pile with a 1m50.248s.
Ongetta Rivacold’s Romano Fenati was disappointed to miss out on the podium in his return race last time out, and is keen to rectify this in Argentina. The Italian ends Friday second fastest, with former team-mate Nicolo Bulega an encouraging third after his woeful start to the season.
British Talent Team’s John McPhee upped his pace this afternoon in fourth place, the Scotsman sitting top of the timesheets for a good portion of the session early on. Like in Qatar, McPhee focused his attention on race set-up and was one of the first to put laps on the race tyre combination of medium/medium.
McPhee ends FP2 in fourth spot, with Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Niccolo Antonelli finally beginning to settle into his new surroundings in fifth. Juanfran Guevara was sixth on his RBA KTM ahead of Darryn Binder.
Qatar pole man Jorge Martin was nearly a second off the pace in eighth spot, with Aron Caner and Livio Loi close behind to complete the top 10. Enea Bastianini lifted himself up to 11th right at the death having been sat in 17th, but the EG 0,0 Honda rider will still be perplexed at the 1.061s deficit he has.
Tatsuki Suzuki headed Kaito Toba in 12th, with Andrea Migno and Adam Norrodin rounding out the top 15. RBA Racing’s Gabriel Rodrigo suffered a mechanical issue late in the session and was left stranded in 30th as a result.
