Aprilia ended Friday in Indonesia with a double lead. Despite falling, Aleix Espargaro beat his teammate Maverick Vinales with a new course record of 1:30.474 minutes.
Marco Bezzecchi (VR46-Ducati) completed the top 3, while World Championship leader Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) clearly missed out on a direct entry into Q2 in 16th place.
Alex Marquez has to retire early
Before the start of the second Friday practice session, Gresini-Ducati announced that Alex Marquez would not be taking part in the race weekend. The Spaniard had broken three ribs in a fall in India and attempted a comeback in Mandalika, but the pain was still too great.
Bezzecchi, however, was able to continue despite his collarbone surgery a few days ago. The VR46 pilot, like Marquez, fell towards the end of the first training session in the morning, but was given the go-ahead in a subsequent examination.
With conditions even hotter than in the morning, the focus in the second training session of the day was initially on race preparation and tire wear, as the race will take place at the same time on Sunday.
KTM internal collision right at the start
For Brad Binder and Augusto Fernandez, the session began with an unfortunate incident in turn 11. Both braked and drove into the asphalt run-off area. However, while trying to avoid Binder, Fernandez fell and took Binder with him. Fortunately, both remained uninjured.
A short time later, her KTM colleague Jack Miller also went down in the same corner. He was on a fast lap when Enea Bastianini, who was driving slowly on the inside, came across him. Miller had to veer slightly off the ideal line and ended up slipping over the front wheel.
As was the case for much of the first training session, the Aprilias set the tone in the rankings. Only four thousandths separated Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales at the top.
Espargaro returns after fall
It stayed that way until the final time hunt, which also decided who would make it straight into Q2. Aleix Espargaro initially improved his own best time, but then crashed in turn 10. He was then displaced in the ranking by Vinales and Bezzecchi, who set a new record with 1:30.644 minutes.
Back on the track, Aleix Espargaro attacked again and beat Bezzecchi’s time by 0.170 seconds. He was the front runner again. Vinales also made a late improvement and moved past Bezzecchi into second place.
Brad Binder (KTM) secured fourth place ahead of Jorge Martin (Pramac-Ducati) and Marc Marquez (Honda). Behind them, Miguel Oliveira (RNF-Aprilia), Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini-Ducati), Miller and Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) also made it straight into Q2. Pol Espargaro (Tech-3-GasGas) narrowly failed in eleventh place.
Bagnaia with too many errors only 16
.World champion Bagnaia experienced a training session to forget. The Ducati rider went astray several times and had bad luck with a yellow flag in the final phase due to crashes by Enea Bastianini (Ducati) and Miller. In the last attempt, Bagnaia braked in turn 11 and was no longer able to improve.
He ended the session in 16th place, 1.161 seconds behind. This means that Bagnaia will have to fight for a subsequent entry into Q2 in Q1 tomorrow.