Smith grabs top practice time for Tech 3

Bradley Smith thrilled his Tech 3 Yamaha team by topping the timesheets in second practice at Le Mans ahead of Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso.

Aleix Espargaro, Team Suzuki MotoGP and Cal Crutchlow, Team LCR Honda

Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda Team

The British rider set the fastest time of 1m33.179s in the closing stages to beat factory Yamaha rider Lorenzo by 0.179s, only to fall right at the end of the session, without injury, at the final corner - although nobody was able to beat his time.

Lorenzo held the top spot for the majority of the session, beating the early benchmark set by FP1 pacesetter Dovizioso by just over two tenths, with Smith slotting into third soon after before his late jump to the top of the times.

Dovizioso nonetheless impressed aboard the Ducati GP15, improved on his fastest lap in FP1 to record a 1m33.553s. Cal Crutchlow also improved from the morning and finished fourth on the LCR Honda.

Despite appearing to be pushing at the limit, reigning champion Marc Marquez was unable to threaten the frontrunners near the end of the session. The Repsol Honda rider set the fifth fastest time, half a second off the pace, one place ahead of points leader Valentino Rossi on the second factory Yamaha.

The returning Dani Pedrosa further improved his set-up on the factory RC213V and set the seventh fastest time ahead of the Espargaro brothers, with Tech 3's Pol leading factory Suzuki rider Aleix. Both fell during the session, the latter in the same place as Smith.

Yonny Hernandez rounded out the top 10 for the Pramac Ducati team, one place ahead of a suffering Andrea Iannone, while the bragging rights for best Open Class rider of the day went to Jack Miller on the LCR Honda in 13th.

Practice results:

Pos	Rider	Bike	Time/Gap
1	Bradley Smith	Yamaha	1m33.179
2	Jorge Lorenzo	Yamaha	0.190
3	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	0.374
4	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	0.473
5	Marc Marquez	Honda	0.491
6	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	0.507
7	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	0.546
8	Pol Espargaro	Yamaha	0.724
9	Aleix Espargaro	Suzuki	0.765
10	Yonny Hernandez	Ducati	0.774
11	Andrea Iannone	Ducati	0.913
12	Maverick Vinales	Suzuki	0.931
13	Jack Miller	Honda	1.074
14	Scott Redding	Honda	1.192
15	Stefan Bradl	Yamaha Forward	1.364
16	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1.389
17	Nicky Hayden	Honda	1.484
18	Hector Barbera	Ducati	1.566
19	Loris Baz	Yamaha Forward	1.823
20	Mike Di Meglio	Ducati	1.888
21	Karel Abraham	Honda	1.911
22	Alvaro Bautista	Aprilia	1.958
23	Eugene Laverty	Honda	2.003
24	Alex de Angelis	ART	2.759
25	Marco Melandri	Aprilia	2.877