Prima Pramac’s Johann Zarco continued his front running form from Silverstone by topping the times on Friday at Austria.

Sitting second in the standings after a wet but drying morning practice, the Frenchmen went one better in the afternoon by dominating a train of Ducati machines with a 1’29.837 best - a new track record due to the turn two alteration.

“Happy with this first day,” Zarco said simply after FP2. “Important lap time in the afternoon, in case of a tricky condition on Saturday morning will be useful to go straight to Q2.

“Overall a good feeling, this new chicane I think, is a good one. You don't have many lines. It's only one line that you can use to get the performance but it makes turn three much easier than what was before and for this reason it's good to have this new chicane.

“We are still all testing a bit what is the best in this chicane but because it's quite slow there is not many options. Also, we cannot really set the bike only for this chicane because the whole Spielberg track remained the same on all the other places. So it's like, you set your bike for Spielberg and then you adapt to the chicane.

“Because the chicane is very slow, I think we can use even better our strong point on the Ducati,” he said if the domination of the Desmosedicis, after seven Bologna machines locked out the top eight. “If we were thinking the Yamaha can have an advantage here, I think it's too slow. So that's why the Ducati get very strong.

“I am satisfied with all the work we have done. We are on the right track, I have very positive feelings. We have all the cards on the table to have a very good weekend, the goal is clear.”