With a new course record on Friday, Aleix Espargaró put himself in a clear favorite position for the Grand Prix of Catalonia. In the second practice session of the MotoGP, the Aprilia rider set the best time of 1:38.686 minutes ahead of his teammate Maverick Vinales. Third was Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati).
It was also sunny and dry in the afternoon. This time, the riders opted for the medium tire on the front wheel, so they went one step harder. As in the morning, two Aprilia pilots initially took the lead in the first run, only this time it was Miguel Oliveira and Maverick Vinales.
Honda caused an early incident when Takaaki Nakagami coasted his RC213V. Apparently there were technical problems here that forced him into the pits.
With a fresh soft rear tire, Fabio Di Giannantonio moved up to the top of the rankings after the first 20 minutes. The Italian is fighting for a place at Gresini-Ducati for 2024 and thus staying in the premier class.
Di Giannantonio lost the best time to Bagnaia a little later and Vinales also overtook him. His Aprilia brand colleague Raul Fernandez caused the first crash of the session shortly after halftime. His bike slammed into the Turn 12 airfence at full speed, but Fernandez was unharmed.
At the beginning of the last quarter of an hour, the field switched to fresh tires for the time attack. After all, this training decides on the Q2 direct feed.
MotoGP: Aprilia factory duo is strong
The classification was then mixed up again properly. Aleix Espargaró was the only driver under 1:40 minutes in the morning, but now more and more people are breaking this mark. Again, the Aprilia works duo presented themselves particularly well.
This time it was enough for Espargaró and Vinales to take a one-two lead, with the two team-mates separating them by 0.362 seconds. Bagnaia was third, 0.375 seconds back. Behind them, many laps fell victim to a late yellow flag caused by Luca Marini coasting his Ducati.
Brad Binder (KTM) completed the top five but was already over six tenths off the best time. The second half of the top 10 was occupied by five Ducatis: Álex Márquez, Marco Bezzecchi, Fabio Di Giannantonio, Enea Bastianini and Jorge Martín.
Pol Espargaró (Tech-3-GasGas) narrowly missed out on the Q2 direct entry in eleventh place, as did KTM rider Jack Miller right behind him. After his strong start, Oliveira only managed 14th place. The two Yamahas ended up even further behind: Fabio Quartararo was 17th, Franco Morbidelli was 18th.
Only Honda performed worse than Yamaha. Marc Marquez, Takaaki Nakagami, stand-in driver Iker Lecuona filling in for the injured Alex Rins and Joan Mir all finished in the last four places. The gap: 1.5 to 2.3 seconds.