Britain’s Sam Lowes stopped the second Moto2 free practice session at a dry Austin despite a whopping highside at turn nine which saw him collected by his Speed Up as it chased him down the track.
Lowes took a lot of inside kerb which unsettled his bike and it then spat him high in the air - reminiscent of Carl Fogarty’s crash at Sugo back when all this was fields - but his 2’10.563 was a couple of laps before was enough to fend off Johann Zarco, who ended just 0.096s in arrears.
Zarco was sitting in fourth place but then took advantage of Lowes’ incident and a crash from reigning champion Tito Rabat who lost the front into the last corner but was unhurt. The Marc VDS man ended 0.375s behind Lowes and 0.123s ahead of Ant West on the QMMF Speed Up who had followed Rabat for several laps.
Simone Corsi rouned out the top five with Julian Simon, on another Speed Up, Alex Rins, Sandro Cortese, Franco Morbidelli and Dominique Aegerter rounding out the top ten.
