Moto2 championship leader Franco Morbidelli headed a Marc VDS one-two in second practice for the Catalan Grand Prix, despite chucking his motorcycle at the scenery in the latter stages of the session.
Morbidelli suffered a troubled Italian Grand Prix one week ago, the Italian finishing a race off the podium for the first time this season in fourth spot.
This saw his points lead cut to just 13 ahead of this weekend’s seventh round of the season, though Morbidelli has made his intentions of opening it back up plain after a devastating display in second practice.
Third fastest this morning, Morbidelli found around eight tenths of a second in the closing minutes of the afternoon session to go fastest of all with a 1m49.731s.
This lap put him 0.316 seconds clear of team-mate Alex Marquez, though the Italian was unable to further cement his position at the top of the timesheets as he crashed at Turn 5.
Simone Corsi put in a quick final effort of 1m50.358s to jump up to third in the closing stages, the Speed Up rider edging compatriot and Italian Grand Prix winner Mattia Pasini.
Jorge Navarro completed the top five on his Gresini Kalex, the Spaniard enjoying a strong start to his home round after finishing this morning’s 45 minutes of running sixth quickest.
AGR’s Yonny Hernandez rounded out the top six as he seeks for a much-needed strong result to turn around his difficult return to the intermediate class.
Francesco Bagnaia will be keen to make amends for his first race crash of the season last time out this weekend, and looks on course to doing so after finishing Friday’s running seventh. Takaaki Nakagami, practice one pacesetter Miguel Oliveira and Tom Luthi rounded out the top 10.
Sandro Cortese just missed out on the top 10 in second practice, the German narrowly edging Axel Pons and Dynavolt Intact team-mate Marcel Schrotter, both of whom suffering falls during the session, to 11th.
