Marc VDS rider Alex Marquez heads into qualifying day tomorrow as the man to beat, after the Spaniard edged Kiefer Racing’s Dominique Aegerter to top spot in FP2.
Despite his strong form so far this season, Marquez comes into the first of four visits to his homeland of Spain in 2017 yet to stand on the podium. Keen to rectify this, Marquez sent a statement of intent to the rest, going fastest in the wet FP1 and repeating the feat in the dry FP2 with a 1m43.121s.
Kiefer Racing has endured a difficult period since the Americas Grand Prix, after Danny Kent split with the team due to ‘irreconcilable differences’. Kent’s now ex-team-mate Aegerter gave the team a reason to smile again, the Swiss rider taking his Suter to second on the timesheets on Friday.
Tech 3’s Xavi Vierge has been impressive all season so far on the Mistral 610, and put on a good show in front of his home crowd in FP2. The Spaniard ends the day third overall and just 0.230s back.
Fabio Quartararo threatened top spot in FP2, but a crash in the closing stages denied him a chance to improve and he was left stranded in fourth spot ahead of championship leader Franco Morbidelli, who suffered his first fall of the year 20 minutes in.
Mattia Pasini once again slotted into the top six with the sixth quickest time of the day, with KTM’s Miguel Oliveira seventh. The two Forward Racing machines of Luca Marini and Lorenzo Baldassarri were close behind in eighth and ninth, with Francesco Bagnaia rounding out the top 10 on his Sky VR46 Kalex.
Axel Pons was one of many crashers in FP2, the RW Racing rider sliding off at Turn 6. Pons remounted to finish 11th fastest, with Jorge Navarro, Simone Corsi, Tom Luthi and Sandro Cortese rounding out the top 15.
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