Maverick Vinales led the way for Aprilia in the second MotoGP practice of the Valencia Grand Prix weekend, while Francesco Bagnaia will have to run in Q1 after managing 15th.
Vinales looked bang on the money from the outset of FP2 as he lapped competitively within the top ten, though Qatar GP victor Fabio Di Gianantonio looked once again to be in a class of one as he swiftly posted the fastest lap of the weekend after just a handful of minutes – a 1:30.076s.
The Italian soon breached the 1:30s mark with a 1:29.924s, before switching to a fresh medium rear tyre to lower the benchmark once more to a 1:29.805s.
It would be Vinales though that stole the headlines by first breaking the Circuit Ricardo Tormo lap record for bikes with a 1:29.392s, before later eclipsing this with a blazing 1:29.142s effort to leave himself a quarter-of-a-second clear of the field.
Jorge Martin got closest to denying the Spaniard the top spot, though got held up behind title rival Bagnaia as he tried to heap pressure on the points leader. With Bagnaia sitting 13th at the start of the final runs, he needed a decent improvement to get into the top ten to secure a guaranteed pole shootout berth.
He tried to shake off the pursuing Martin but was unable to do so, with his final couple of laps ultimately non-improvements. This left him down in 15th as the test came to an end, while Martin improved to lap within 0.147s of Vinales – the Pramac rider badly held up by the struggling Bagnaia in the final half of his tour.
Johann Zarco managed to slot in behind his team-mate in third ahead of Gresini’s Di Gianantonio, while VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi rounded off an all-Ducati top five.
Brad Binder managed to improve in the latter stages to claim the accolade of best of the rest for KTM in sixth, the South African moving clear of Honda’s Marc Marquez.
Raul Fernandez impressed to claim eighth on Friday for the RNF Aprilia outfit, while Jack Miller secured ninth spot despite suffering two separate crashes. He was lucky to escape injury after a violent high-side at Turn 4, his RC16 losing grip mid-corner and flicking him off.
A brief red flag period was needed to clear the debris, allowing him to fetch his spare machine. He subsequently crashed once again, though his earlier time was enough to keep him within the top ten ahead of the other Aprilia of Aleix Espargaro.
Enea Bastianini narrowly missed out on the final guaranteed Q2 spot, though the bigger story was team-mate Bagnaia in 15th – who ended up missing out on tenth by just over two-tenths-of-a-second.
Alex Marquez also failed to breach the top ten as he finished off Friday in 12th, while both Yamaha men also failed to make it in. Fabio Quartararo was the best-placed M1 rider in 13th, with Franco Morbidelli just fractions behind his team-mate in 14th.
The returning Alex Rins lapped 1.3 seconds from Vinales’ benchmark to end his first day back on a MotoGP bike since the Australian GP 19th overall, the Spaniard tasting the gravel at Turn 1 early on.
Joan Mir failed to take part in FP2 following his nasty Turn 4 crash in FP1, the Honda rider transported to the local hospital in Valencia for further checks.
