Quartararo tops Jerez FP2, Marquez down twice within a minute

Reigning MotoGP champion Fabio Quartararo ended Friday practice for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez on top, while Marc Marquez crashed twice within the span of a minute.

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Key moments:

> Quartararo followed by Ducati trio

> Marquez gets a ride from Pedrosa

> Top 16 within a second

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On a push lap around the halfway point of the session, Marquez folded the front of his Honda RC213V entering the hairpin-like corner named after his former team-mate Dani Pedrosa, sliding off at low speed and remounting the bike.

Luckless scenes for @marcmarquez93! 😮

After crashing at Turn 6 and picking the bike up, Marc hit a damp patch at Turn 9 and crashed again! 🤯#SpanishGP 🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/hJgt1ofqEC

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 29, 2022

Yet just three corners later he had to move off the racing line coming into the Angel Nieto corner in order to let KTM’s Miguel Oliveira through, which resulted in him catching a damp patch and dropping his Honda again, this time into the gravel.

This damaged the RC213V enough again for Marquez to instead hitch a ride with none other than Pedrosa, now a KTM tester and only too happy to give Marquez a scooter lift back to the paddock.

Former teammates reunited! 😅@marcmarquez93 and @26_DaniPedrosa may have shared a garage before but never a motorcycle! 🤝#SpanishGP 🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/tZMvcAEgFP

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 29, 2022

Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia took the lead from LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami coming into the final minutes of the session with a 1m37.283s, and had a lap 0.020s better chalked off for track limits the next time by.

But it won’t have been enough anyway to prevent Quartararo – on pole at Jerez in all four of his MotoGP starts there so far – from jumping ahead with a 1m37.071s, although it would have prevented Bagnaia from slipping down to third behind Gresini Ducati’s Enea Bastianini.

Pramac’s Jorge Martin made it three Ducatis in the top four, followed by Nakagami, who had both KTM’s Brad Binder and the works Honda of Pol Esparagro within a hundredth of his time.

Alex Rins was the lead Suzuki in eighth, while Maverick Vinales was top Aprilia a place behind.

Marquez did remount after the crash, but was not among the 16 riders within a second of Quartararo’s time, and incurred the wrath of Aleix Espargaro late on in the session over an unseen incident.

Practice 2 Results