Miguel Oliveira ended the first day of Moto2 action for the Valencia Grand Prix fastest of all after topping both sessions in Spain.
KTM’s Oliveira – who has won the last two grands prix – set the pace in the first session with a 1m35.847s from Marc VDS‘ Alex Marquez and KTM team-mate Brad Binder, with the new Moto2 world champion Franco Morbidelli completing the top five.
Binder was the initial pacesetter when the afternoon session got underway, the South African edging ahead of the rest with a 1m36.299s.
The KTM rider was shuffled back by Marquez, though the Spaniard had team-mate Morbidelli and Francesco Bagnaia do the same in quick succession, with the latter’s 1m35.859s standings until the closing stages of the session.
Oliveira pipped Bagnaia in the final five minutes by just 0.067 seconds with a 1m35.802s, while Binder once again completed the top three for the Austrian marque.
Mattia Pasini ended the day fourth overall after an early gambit of 1m36.010s could not be bettered by Marquez despite his best efforts. Takaaki Nakagami begins his final Moto2 weekend before stepping up to MotoGP with LCR Honda in sixth ahead of Morbidelli, also contesting his last intermediate class race.
Ricard Cardus is in for the injured Tom Luthi at the Interwetten team and ended the day a respectable eighth overall ahead of Hafizh Syahrin and Xavi Vierge.
The Dynavolt duo of Marcel Schrotter and Sandro Cortese just missed out on the top 10 in 11th and 12th respectively, while Axel Pons, Jesko Raffin – both of whom without rides in the Moto2 class next season – and Isaac Vinales rounded out the top 15.
Xavier Simeon will also step up to MotoGP next season alongside Luthi, Morbidelli and Nakagami, though his weekend got off to a nightmare start as two crashes at Turn 8 left him down in 31st on the timesheets.
British Superbike race winner Jake Dixon is back as a wildcard with the Dynavolt team, and completed the 33-rider field at the end of second practice with a 1m38.798s. The Briton crashed at the end of the morning session, but was unscathed in the fall.
