Francesco Bagnaia topped the timesheets in the second MotoGP practice in Barcelona after posting a late best lap time in the closing seconds.
The factory Ducati rider’s rapid lap time of 1.38.918s arrived after overtaking fellow VR46 Academy graduate Marco Bezzecchi to top the standings.
The second session of the day saw instant improvements from all riders, but still, everyone spent time gauging what tyres provided the best setup for Saturday and Sunday.
The weather in Barcelona throughout the session remained the same at 17 degrees, but the low grip on track meant riders opted for different setup choices.
VR46 Ducati rider Bezzecchi topped the session at the halfway point, as the Italian chose hard fronts and soft rear tyres. Still, other riders below him chose different compounds in the front and rear.
Most notably, championship leader Jorge Martin opted for medium fronts and hard rears in the middle phase of the session.
Earlier, his team-mate Franco Morbidelli was the first rider to hit the deck, as he and the Pramac bike fell into the gravel traps at Turn 2.
As the clock continued ticking down to the final fifteen minutes before the routine time attack from the whole field, no rider could match Bezzecchi’s lap time of 1.39.829s and the top ten were separated by just over half a second.
Martin proceeded to top the timesheets before Johann Zarco made a surprise feature at the top for a brief period considering Honda’s lack of overall pace.
Joan Mir’s crash on his last run left sectors three and four yellow-flagged, leaving multiple riders the decision to call off their respective runs.
Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro almost bettered Bagnaia and Bezzecchi’s laps in the final seconds, but produced a quick enough time to be slightly over a tenth behind and finished as the lead Aprilia rider.
Zarco produced a fourth-place finish for Honda, whereas his old Pramac team-mate Martin could only manage fifth despite leading at one point in the session.
Maverick Vinales snatched sixth spot off the Gresini Ducati brothers of Alex and Marc Marquez.
Pedro Acosta and Enea Bastianini sealed ninth and tenth, respectively, as the duo hung onto an automatic Q2 spot by the narrowest of margins.
Brad Binder’s last run almost saw him eclipse the pair in the timesheets before he lost time in the final sector, which saw him finish 11th before his time got removed due to track limits.
Instead, his team-mate Miller finished 11th, whereas the table topper from the first practice, Taakaki Nakagami, couldn’t replicate his mesmerising performance from earlier and finished 12th.
The Yamaha rider pairing of Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins will start in Q1 on Saturday after both finished in 13th and 14th place, but both finished ahead of the GP24 Pramac rider Franco Morbidelli.
Binder’s lap time removal demoted him to 17th in the midst of a Repsol Honda sandwich as Luca Marini came out on top, as Mir’s late crash dropped him down to 18th.
The Trackhouse duo of Raul Fernandez and Miguel Oliveira improved slightly to occupy 19th and 20th place. The duo finished the session miles clear of GasGas rider Augusto Fernandez, Michele Pirro and Stefan Bradl.
