Quartararo shrugs off crash and leg scare to top practice

Yamaha MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo ended Friday practice for the British Grand Prix with a comfortable lead despite a painful crash early in the afternoon session.

Quartararo took a rare tumble coming out of Vale as he tipped in for the Turn 8 left-hander and high-sided, his left leg virtually scrunched against the rest of his body by the out-of-control Yamaha M1 bike.

Fabio Quartararo isn't human 🤖

He hobbled away during FP2, came back within ten minutes, and obliterated the rest of the field 😳

Unreal effort 👏#BritishGP pic.twitter.com/OXMI9FbCCH

— MotoGP on BT Sport (@btsportmotogp) August 27, 2021

This caused obvious immediate pain for the championship leader as he struggled to get on his feet initially and limped away from the site with the assistance of a marshal.

But his limp got visibly better in a few moments’ time and he even attempted to remount the bike, before ultimately getting a ride back to the paddock. He was back out on track even before the session reached its halfway point.

Out front, the Espargaro brothers – led by Aleix on the Aprilia – maintained a 1-2 for some time, but Quartararo wasted little time in returning to the front, his impressive 2m00.138s effort admittedly aided by a fresh medium rear tyre and subsequently improved upon by 0.006s.

As rivals commenced their for late soft-tyre runs, Quartararo’s lead was slashed, but the Frenchman restored it and then some using a fresh tyre of his own, firing in a remarkable 1m59.317s and nearly improving with a follow-up attempt at the chequered flag, only to ultimately lose ground in the final sector.

But that initial effort was still enough to leave him half a second clear of his nearest rival, Ducati’s Jack Miller, who moved up to second at the very end along with fellow Ducati rider Jorge Martin.

Pol Espargaro led Honda team-mate Marc Marquez – who seemingly emerged with nothing more than some gravel in his eye from his scary FP1 crash – in fourth, while Francesco Bagnaia made it three Ducatis in the top six, ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro, who was incensed with brother Pol for impending him late on.

The lead KTM of Brad Binder, the lead Suzuki of Alex Rins and Valentino Rossi’s Petronas Yamaha completed the top 10.

The other Petronas Yamaha rider, Jake Dixon, again took the penultimate spot, while stand-in Yamaha factory rider Cal Crutchlow was five places ahead in 16th.

LCR Honda’s Alex Marquez made it two crashes in two practice sessions, and two Friday shunts at Maggotts for the Marquez family, having followed Marc’s example with a fast off at the corner.

Practice 2 Results