Miller takes clean sweep of MotoGP Valencia Friday

Pramac Ducati rider Jack Miller completed a clean sweep of Friday practice in the second MotoGP practice session for the European Grand Prix at Valencia.

With the track considerably drier than it had been in the morning, nearly all MotoGP riders elected to venture out on slicks immediately – and while Takaaki Nakagami was the exception in going out on wets, he returned to the pits almost immediately and rejoined on a slick-shod bike.

The pace improved all throughout the session as track conditions continued to be better, and at the halfway point Pramac Ducati held a 1-2, with Francesco Bagnaia leading Jack Miller – who provided an early-session flashpoint by lunging down the inside of Maverick Vinales at Turn 8 and forcing the Yamaha rider to sit up.

Miller led coming into the final 10 minutes, but KTM’s Pol Espargaro – whose first MotoGP podium came in the wet at Valencia two years ago – then upped the pace substantially, establishing a lead of nine tenths with a 1m32.952s.

But that advantage continued to shrink coming up to the chequered flag, and he was shuffled four places down by four riders’ final laps.

Miller was the quickest among them, leading Aprilia rider Aleix Espargaro by a tenth, with Petronas Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli again top of the six main title contenders in third place.

Nakagami was the final rider to slot in below Pol Espargaro’s existing benchmark, while his LCR Honda team-mate Cal Crutchlow sat two places behind in sixth – only to then have his fastest lap time chalked off for a yellow flag infringement.

This presumably came after Danilo Petrucci’s crash. The Ducati rider was in the top 10 when he fell at the final corner in the closing minutes, and though he desperately sprinted back to his pit box, he wasn’t able to rejoin the session and was classified in 18th.

Suzuki rider Alex Rins took sixth place, ahead of KTM’s Brad Binder and Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso.

Like Crutchlow, Vinales appeared to have a laptime good enough for sixth chalked off, but his position in the overall practice classification – which determines automatic progression to Q2 – is unlikely to be of much relevance as he has been consigned to a pitlane start due to exceeding his engine allocation.

However, the cancellations for Crutchlow and Mir proved pivotal for the two leading championship hopefuls, Fabio Quartararo and Joan Mir, who just snuck into the top 10 and thus provisionally hold Q2 spots.

Though Saturday morning rain is expected, FP3 is still likely to be drier than the previous practice sessions, meaning it’s likely to be the one that will determine who has to fight through Q1.

Valentino Rossi’s stand-in Garrett Gerloff was again one of the highlights of what might be his final session of the weekend, with Yamaha rider Rossi expecting results of a second consecutive COVID-19 test and set to rejoin proceedings should he test negative.

Gerloff was as high as fifth at one point in the session, but was shuffled down the order during the late-session qualifying simulations and ended up 19th, 1.579s off the pace. However, he was still over a second and a half clear of Aprilia’s debutant Lorenzo Savadori, and over two-and-a-half seconds clear of a seemingly struggling Tito Rabat (Avintia Ducati).

Practice 2 Results