Practice report

Motegi MotoGP: Quartararo beats Vinales in FP2

Petronas Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo set the pace in the Friday afternoon MotoGP practice session at Motegi, the Frenchman going fastest by over three tenths.

Newly-crowned champion Marc Marquez's FP2 programme was slightly delayed because his team mistakenly put on a hard rear tyre at the start of the session, but he swiftly took the lead when he rejoined with a soft rear.

He held a sizeable gap in the first half of the session before Ducati factory rider Danilo Petrucci managed to go slightly faster with a 1m45.686s.

Petrucci stayed ahead until the dying stages when first his teammate Andrea Dovizioso outpaced him by seven hundredths, before Maverick Vinales went half a second quicker.

But then Vinales's top time was smashed by Quartararo as the session ended, the Frenchman setting a 1m44.764s before going off into the gravel at Turn 1.

Behind Vinales and Marquez, Dovizioso was the top Ducati in fourth but over six tenths slower than Quartararo.

Vinales' teammate Valentino Rossi left his fast lap dangerously late and had time for a single flyer but was able to snatch fifth, with Franco Morbidelli bringing a fourth Yamaha into the top six.

Pramac's Jack Miller led the works Ducati of Petrucci in seventh, despite the former's session ending in a crash at Turn 9.

Joan Mir was ninth as both he and 11th-placed Suzuki teammate Alex Rins, who doesn't have an automatic Q2 spot at the moment, had off-track excursions but stayed on their respective bikes.

Aleix Espargaro put his Aprilia 10th, beating Rins by 0.009s.

Marquez was the only Honda in the top 10 with Cal Crutchlow, Takaaki Nakagami and Jorge Lorenzo only taking 12th, 15th and 17th respectively.

Tech 3 KTM rider Miguel Oliveira suffered a fast crash at Turn 12, the Portuguese rider winded but able to walk away from the accident.

Session results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	20	Fabio Quartararo	Yamaha	01'44.764
2	12	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	01'45.085	00.321
3	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	01'45.100	00.336
4	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	01'45.414	00.650
5	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	01'45.466	00.702
6	21	Franco Morbidelli	Yamaha	01'45.562	00.798
7	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	01'45.577	00.813
8	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	01'45.619	00.855
9	36	Joan Mir	Suzuki	01'45.641	00.877
10	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	01'45.721	00.957
11	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	01'45.730	00.966
12	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	01'45.804	01.040
13	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	01'46.020	01.256
14	63	Francesco Bagnaia	Ducati	01'46.330	01.566
15	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	01'46.557	01.793
16	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	01'46.576	01.812
17	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Honda	01'46.661	01.897
18	88	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	01'46.800	02.036
19	50	Sylvain Guintoli	Suzuki	01'46.803	02.039
20	29	Andrea Iannone	Aprilia	01'46.969	02.205
21	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	01'47.158	02.394
22	82	Mika Kallio	KTM	01'47.312	02.548
23	55	Hafizh Syahrin	KTM	01'47.974	03.210
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