Johann Zarco led an all-Ducati 1-2-3 in the second practice session for the Thailand Grand Prix, the Frenchman banging in a late improvement to snatch the initiative from Francesco Bagnaia.
The field picked up from where they left off in FP1 with Bagnaia posting a 1:31.326s to lead the way early on ahead of opening practice leader Marc Marquez and VR46 Ducati’s Marco Bezzecchi, with Zarco moving into the top spot not long after with a 1:31.138s effort.
The field elected to focus on race runs following the opening ten minutes of the session just in case dry running extended beyond Friday – with rain currently forecast for the rest of the weekend – until the last portion of the outing where the customary time attack got underway as the field battled for a guaranteed berth into the pole shootout.
Jorge Martin kicked things off as he fired in the fastest lap of the weekend up to that point – a 1:30.471s – though the Spaniard was swiftly relegated to second by fellow Ducati pilot Bagnaia, who managed to string together a 1:30.299s.
Multiple yellow flags in the closing stages –caused by RNF Yamaha pair Cal Crutchlow and Darryn Binder who both went down at the fast Turn 7, the former having also crashed at Turn 3 early on – affected the rest of the runners as they tried to improve their gambits, though Zarco was fortunately able to get some clean space to post a 1:30.281s at the death to pip Bagnaia to the FP2 benchmark.
Behind the leading two came Martin, with Honda’s Marc Marquez and Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo completing the combined top five despite not having improved on their FP1 efforts.
It was the same story for the sister factory Ducati of Jack Miller who also failed to improved on his time from Friday morning, while VR46’s Luca Marini managed to secure seventh overall with the fourth-best time in FP2.
Miguel Oliveira was another to improve as he bagged eighth overall with the fifth fastest lap in the session, while Suzuki’s Alex Rins and Franco Morbidelli completed the top ten.
Enea Bastianini ended the day 11th overall, putting him in danger of having to contest Q1 should the expected rain materialise on Saturday, the Gresini man just clear of Crutchlow who saw a decent improvement evaporate with his last crash.
Aprilia duo Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales continued to struggle for outright speed en-route to 13th and 15th overall, the RS-GP’s sandwiching Bezzecchi who suffered a crash at Turn 3 early on, a fate also shared by fellow rookie Fabio Di Gianantonio at the same bend.
Brad Binder meanwhile continued to struggle on his factory KTM, the South African a distant 18th on the timesheets behind the sister factory Honda of Pol Espargaro and only marginally clear of Tech 3 rookies Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez.
Tetsuta Nagashima won the battle of the replacement riders meanwhile, the LCR Honda man clocking in the 23rd best lap of the day around 1.7 seconds from the top, while Danilo Petrucci ended the day at the foot of the times having failed to top his time from FP1.
