Practice report

Thailand MotoGP: Quartararo leads Yamaha 1-2-3 in FP2

Petronas Yamaha rookie Fabio Quartararo topped the second MotoGP practice session at Buriram as Marc Marquez returned from hospital to take sixth place.

Marquez was hospitalised after a hefty crash in FP1, but was straight out on track as FP2 began and beat Maverick Vinales' morning benchmark within three laps.

His 1m30.891s gave him a huge early lead and while several riders took in second place, for 30 minutes the field was only able to close the gap to Marquez from seven to five tenths.

As other riders put on new rear tyres for the late-session flyers, Valentino Rossi was the first one to threaten Marquez's lead with two 1m31.0s before his teammate Vinales went fastest.

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But Vinales couldn't improve for the rest of the session and Quartararo did instead, the Frenchman taking the lead with a 1m30.404s just a few seconds before the chequered flag fell.

He topped the session by 0.193s from Vinales, with his teammate Franco Morbidelli completing an all-Yamaha top three.

Pramac Ducati's Jack Miller was the best non-Yamaha rider in fourth with Rossi completing the top five.

Marquez did not improve on his early-session time and fell to sixth in the order with Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro taking an impressive seventh.

Factory Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso was eighth while his teammate Danilo Petrucci is currently out of Q2 due to being narrowly outpaced by the Suzukis of Joan Mir and Alex Rins in ninth and 10th.

KTM struggled in the session with the injured Pol Espargaro leading the team's efforts in 15th, while Marquez's works Honda teammate Jorge Lorenzo was 20th, 1.5s off the pace.

Tech 3 KTM's Miguel Oliveira fell at Turn 11, his second crash of the weekend.

Session results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	20	Fabio Quartararo	Yamaha	1'30.404
2	12	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	1'30.597	0.193
3	21	Franco Morbidelli	Yamaha	1'30.625	0.221
4	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	1'30.698	0.294
5	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'30.733	0.329
6	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'30.891	0.487
7	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	1'31.007	0.603
8	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1'31.027	0.623
9	36	Joan Mir	Suzuki	1'31.086	0.682
10	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	1'31.094	0.690
11	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'31.115	0.711
12	63	Francesco Bagnaia	Ducati	1'31.154	0.750
13	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	1'31.344	0.940
14	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	1'31.424	1.020
15	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	1'31.499	1.095
16	29	Andrea Iannone	Aprilia	1'31.512	1.108
17	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	1'31.588	1.184
18	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	1'31.932	1.528
19	88	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	1'31.936	1.532
20	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Honda	1'31.949	1.545
21	82	Mika Kallio	KTM	1'31.991	1.587
22	55	Hafizh Syahrin	KTM	1'32.584	2.180
View full results