Marquez sets lap record on his best MotoGP Friday of 2024

Six-time MotoGP champion Marc Marquez maintained his supremacy over his rivals into the second premier-class practice session at Aragon.

Key moments:

• Marquez untouchable
• Aprilias come alive in qualifying mode again
• KTM disappointment
• Zarco gets Honda into Q2
• Bastianini hindered by yellow flags

Marquez, a four-time MotoGP winner at the circuit, was already head and shoulders clear of the rest in the opening session at Aragon - which has returned to the calendar after a year's absence and has had a full resurfacing carried out in the meantime.

But while that FP1 edge could be attributed to Marquez's well-documented affinity for low-grip conditions, his performance held up coming into the much more representative second session too.

He led on his first tyre set of the session, by as much as six tenths at one point, and then duly improved once into the 'Q0' time-attack mode of the closing minutes.

An even better laptime went begging with a small error in the penultimate corner, but Marquez returned to the track with a new soft and produced a new lap record - a 1m45.801s.

No other rider breached the 1m45s range, with Marquez's closest rivals being the two works Aprilia riders, Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales, who were both around three tenths off.

Jorge Martin was the highest-placed of the factory-spec Ducati GP24s in fourth place, lending strong credence to the pre-event expectations that the newer-spec Desmosedicis would not have as big an advantage here over last year's version.

His title rival Pecco Bagnaia was two places down, the pair separated by Alex Marquez - who followed Marc on his brother/team-mate's record lap.

Franco Morbidelli in seventh meant Enea Bastianini was the only GP24 rider not to make the top 10 - and therefore required to participate in Q1 - although this was deceptive as Bastianini had a top-10-worthy laptime scrubbed off by yellow flags for a Jack Miller crash.

LCR Honda's Johann Zarco, strong throughout the session and choosing a good reference to follow in Martin on his fastest lap, took eighth - recording Honda's first Q2 appearance of the season.

Trackhouse Aprilia duo Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira picked up the final available Q2 spots.

This means that all four KTM RC16s will fight it out with Bastianini in Q1 on Saturday - despite Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder having looked strong in FP1. The two VR46 Ducatis will also have to contest Q1.

While Honda had a rare highlight in its otherwise poor season, fellow Japanese manufacturer Yamaha was 19th and 20th with Alex Rins and Fabio Quartararo, separated by 0.001s.

Quartararo had a crash during the session, while Augusto Fernandez (Tech3 Gas Gas) was another rider to hit the deck.