Morbidelli tops Barcelona practice two, trouble for Quartararo

Franco Morbidelli made it a Petronas SRT Yamaha Friday MotoGP practice sweep at Barcelona, leading Avintia Ducati rider Johann Zarco in the second session.

Morbidelli’s 1m39.789s at the chequered flag left him a tenth clear of Zarco, with the two riders alone in lapping below the 1m40s mark.

Morbidelli took the lead early in the session during an initial run on the fresh medium rear, as he settled on what was then the second-fastest laptime of the weekend – a 1m40.573s, just over a tenth off team-mate Fabio Quartararo’s FP1 benchmark.

He was sat a quarter of a second clear of nearest rival Brad Binder at the top of the timing screens when he dropped his Yamaha at the sharp Turn 10 left-hander, as the session timer edged towards the halfway mark.

Yet Morbidelli retained the top spot until there were just six minutes left, when he was finally usurped by Suzuki rider Joan Mir, producing a 1m40.441s.

A couple minutes later, Quartararo’s FP1 benchmark was finally surpassed as KTM man Binder fired in a 1m40.008s, which kept him top until the chequered flag – with Zarco and Morbidelli having to scrap rapid penultimate laps due to Turn 12 yellow flags for an Iker Lecuona crash.

But with the yellow flags cleared for their final attempts, Morbidelli duly jumped to the top spot, with Zarco a tenth slower in his tow.

Binder settled for third, ahead of the fastest works Yamaha of Maverick Vinales and the fastest Honda of LCR rider Takaaki Nakagami.

Mir didn’t improve on the time that had taken him top, and was ultimately shuffled down to sixth, staying narrowly ahead of Pol Espargaro (KTM) and rookie Alex Marquez (Honda).

Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi and Suzuki’s Alex Rins made up the top 10, although while Rossi is currently on course to secure an automatic Q2 spot, Rins is outside of the combined classification top 10 due to Quartararo’s FP1 effort.

Quartararo himself was unable to improve on that lap in FP2, thwarted by a bike issue heading out for his final run, and placed only 14th-fastest.

While Zarco dazzled on the 2019-spec Ducati – despite crashing at Turn 5 – it was a bruising session for his counterparts on the Desmosedici GP20s, with Jack Miller 11th, his Pramac team-mate Francesco Bagnaia in 20th and the two works bikes of Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci 18th and 22nd.

Aside from Morbidelli, Lecuona and Zarco’s falls, there was a Turn 2 crash for Honda’s replacement rider Stefan Bradl, who took 19th place.

Practice 2 Results

Practice 2 Results