Sepang MotoGP: Rins leads Marquez in second practice

Marquez spent the opening half of the afternoon session on top, and until the final five minutes he was the only rider from the top 10 in first practice to improve his best time.

That all changed when Pramac Ducati man Jack Miller again became the first rider to dip beneath the two-minute mark with a best lap of 1m59.771s, which was then eclipsed by a 1m59.701s from Marquez.

But Rins, having just slotted into second behind Miller, was able to find even more time on his final flying lap, turning in a 1m59.608s to best Honda rider Marquez by 0.093s.

Miller's time was enough for third place, 0.163s off the pace, ahead of Phillip Island winner Maverick Vinales on the best of the Yamahas and the second Pramac Ducati of Danilo Petrucci.

Valentino Rossi enjoyed a spell at the top of the times in the second half of the session prior to Miller's improvement, and in the end was sixth-fastest, failing to improve on his best effort from Friday morning.

That time still left him fourth in the combined timesheets, behind Rins, FP1 pacesetter Andrea Dovizioso (who was only seventh-fastest in FP2) and Marquez.

Johann Zarco (Tech 3 Yamaha) and Andrea Iannone (Suzuki) retained their places in the top 10 overall by ending up eighth and ninth, but Dani Pedrosa (Honda) was left outside the cut-off despite being 10th fastest in FP2.

Instead, Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) remains 10th overall by virtue of his FP1 time after a session in which he finished 19th.

His teammate Scott Redding was the only rider to crash, doing so early on at Turn 2, although Marquez saved a lurid slide at Turn 15, the final corner, not long after.

Jorge Lorenzo continued to struggle on the second of the factory Ducatis, as he elected to continue running despite ending up slowest of all in first practice.

The Spanish rider failed to improve on his FP1 time, completing only nine laps, and was once again last, 5s off the pace.

Session results (FP2 only):

Pos.	No.	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	1'59.608
2	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'59.701	0.093
3	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	1'59.771	0.163
4	25	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	1'59.802	0.194
5	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'59.811	0.203
6	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	2'00.017	0.409
7	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	2'00.091	0.483
8	5	Johann Zarco	Yamaha	2'00.159	0.551
9	29	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	2'00.502	0.894
10	26	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	2'00.579	0.971
11	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	2'00.829	1.221
12	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	2'00.980	1.372
13	21	Franco Morbidelli	Honda	2'00.981	1.373
14	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	2'01.020	1.412
15	38	Bradley Smith	KTM	2'01.302	1.694
16	6	Stefan Bradl	Honda	2'01.561	1.953
17	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	2'01.684	2.076
18	12	Thomas Luthi	Honda	2'01.743	2.135
19	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	2'01.766	2.158
20	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Yamaha	2'01.894	2.286
21	10	Xavier Simeon	Ducati	2'01.900	2.292
22	81	Jordi Torres	Ducati	2'01.940	2.332
23	45	Scott Redding	Aprilia	2'02.338	2.730
24	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	2'04.636	5.028