Friday Le Mans sweep for Miller as Marquez wrecks Kalex chassis

Jack Miller completed a MotoGP Friday practice sweep in a crash-filled Friday afternoon French Grand Prix session, in which Marc Marquez badly shunted his Kalex-built Honda chassis.

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Key moments:

> Early-session crashfest

> KTM, Ducati, Aprilia in the mix

> Two Kalex crashes for Honda

> Yamaha in Q1 again

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After a relatively calm first practice, the second session kicked off with a remarkable six falls in the first 13 minutes.

Two of those, for Aprilia riders Aleix Espargaro and Lorenzo Savadori, came at the Chemin aux Boeufs chicane, which would then also catch out Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin shortly thereafter.

In the meantime, Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli went down at Raccordement, Augusto Fernandez was caught out mid-Dunlop chicane, and Joan Mir crashed his own Kalex-built Honda chassis at Le Musee, which then also hosted an Alex Marquez crash.

A strange one for @Afernandez37! 😮

Just as he was about to throw the bike over to the other side the front end gave way 💥#FrenchGP 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/nBVEsO6kfh

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) May 12, 2023

The crashing largely abated from there, although there would also be a fall for Ducati stand-in Danilo Petrucci and the aforementioned late crash in which Marc Marquez sent his Kalex chassis into the gravel, where it tumbled aggressively before coming to a stop.

Miller’s FP1 benchmark was surpassed by team-mate Brad Binder with 14 minutes left on the clock, but the Aussie responded soon enough and in the end wound up with the sole sub-1m31s laptime of the day – a 1m30.950s.

It put him a tenth clear of his nearest rival Espargaro, while VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi made it three different marques in the top three.

Martin and Johann Zarco completed the top five for Pramac, followed by Espargaro’s Aprilia team-mate Maverick Vinales and Binder.

Championship leader Pecco Bagnaia had a nervy time getting into the top 10. He bailed out of his first soft-tyre ‘Q0’ run because of the elder Marquez trying to follow him, and then was nearly caught out by yellow flags late on.

He ultimately did sneak in at the chequered flag in ninth, between the Marquez brothers – with Marc already looking all but guaranteed to make Q2 when he fell at Chemin aux Boeufs.

Disaster on @marcmarquez93's last flying lap! 💥

Damage to the motorcycle but he has made it into a Q2 place 💪#FrenchGP 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/oSXkXvWIAv

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) May 12, 2023

Bagnaia’s late improvement denied a Q2 spot to Luca Marini, who wound up just 0.003s short of Alex Marquez.

Yamaha will be contesting Q1 in full again on Saturday, Fabio Quartararo outpacing team-mate Morbidelli by nearly half a second but still coming up over a tenth short of a Q2 spot.

In the battle of the three injury stand-ins, Petrucci led the way in 19th despite being two seconds off the pace.

Practice 2 Results