Takaaki Nakagami dominated proceedings on a crash-strewn Friday at Phillip Island to lead the combined timesheets in Moto2.
Nakagami was in imperious form in the opening session, the Japanese rider over half a second clear of Mattia Pasini in second spot.
The Honda Team Asia rider went top of the pile in the early stages of the afternoon session with a 1m33.355s, which was eight tenths of a second quicker than the rest.
He then improved to a 1m33.317s, while Dominique Aegerter – who was stripped of his Misano win last week due to a technical infringement – moved up to second, though some seven tenths down.
The session was briefly halted when Tarran Mackenzie left debris on track from a crash at the Honda hairpin 20 minutes in.
The Kiefer Racing rider was just one of a number of riders to fall in quick succession, with both Forward Racing rider’s Lorenzo Baldassarri and Luca Marini, and Fabio Quartararo all going down within a few minutes of each other.
Jorge Navarro crashed at Turn 8 not too long before that quartet, while Tom Luthi came off at Siberia in the opening stages of the session.
The red flag offered Luthi‘s Interwetten team a little more time to get his stricken motorcycle repaired, and he was able to return to action for the final eight minutes.
Luthi could not better his 1m34.629s, though, and slid to 11th on the second practice times, but remains eighth on the combined standings.
Nakagami was unable to improve on his 1m33.310s from the early stages of the session, but went unchallenged to the chequered flag to end Friday fastest of all.
Pasini crashed at Honda hairpin in the final four minutes and dropped to 13th on the second practice timesheets, though his 1m33.986s from this morning keeps him second overall ahead of Aegerter.
Miguel Oliveira was fourth on the combined times from championship leader Morbidelli, who ends Friday a head-scratching nine tenths of a second off the best pace. Francesco Bagnaia rounded out the top three in the second session and was sixth overall.
Motegi race winner Alex Marquez heads into Saturday’s running seventh on combined times after improving on his first practice best to a 1m34.220s this afternoon.
Quartararo and Simone Corsi, who only managed two laps in the afternoon because of a crash at Siberia, complete the top 10 on the combined standings.
