Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez increased his gap over team-mate Dani Pedrosa to almost half a second in the second MotoGP free practice session and was the only man to break the 1’55s barrier with a 1’54.828 as only 1.7s covered the top 20 riders.
The reigning world champion was well under Casey Stoner’s lap record of 1’55.153 but still has some way to go to better Jorge Lorenzo’s outright best of 1’53.927 set on qualifying tyres in 2008.
Pedrosa ended 0.0447s behind Marquez but only found a tenth over his time from yesterday while Andrea Dovizioso parked the factory Ducati in third place and is less than one one-hundredth behind his former Honda team-mate.
Britain’s Cal Crutchlow put in a last-ditch effort to jump into fourth place with his final run even though he came into pitlane gesturing brake problems to crew chief Christophe Bourguignon. The LCR Honda man found half a second and ended only 0.569 behind Marquez.
Andrea Iannone stuck the soft tyre in the rear of his works GP15 right at the end of the session and it had a small effect as the Italian managed a 1’55.404, nearly a second quicker than his time from yesterday.
Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi are nailed together in sixth and seventh respectively with only 0.009 separating the Spaniard from the Italian. Rossi was the biggest winner, finding seven-tenths overnight while Lorenzo’s pace increase was negligible.
Former 125GP world champion Mike Di Meglio used a combination of the soft tyre and a tow from Pol Espargaro to hop into eighth place in the session and ninth overall while Bradley Smith and Hector Barbera completed the top ten.
Aleix Espargaro missed his final soft-tyre run on the Suzuki as his GSX-RR suffered a problem and he had to watch the final couple of minutes from pitlane. The Spaniard finished the session in 11th place.
Nicky Hayden was the first of the Open Hondas in 15th place, one a head of Scott Redding on the RC213V while Eugene Laverty ended in 19th place but only 1.5s slower than Marquez.
