FP2 – Marquez still in the lead, Miller and Quartararo in contact

After a rainy morning, the sun has appeared on the Austin circuit. The ambient temperature reached 30 ° C and that of the track 41 ° C, allowing the pilots to drive immediately on slick tires in a second free practice session which is probably decisive to ensure the direct qualification in Q2 since more showers are expected on Saturday. morning, which would make any improvement impossible.

As the risk of rain was much lower for Sunday, the drivers first prepared for the race, mostly taking the track with a hard front and a medium rear. Immediately they drove faster than in the morning but after a few laps the same man was in the lead, Marc Marquez, already domineering when the track was wet.

The winner of six of the seven races on this MotoGP circuit pushed Jack Miller back to 0 “525 ten minutes into the session. Pol Espargaró was third ahead Fabio Quartararo, relegated to more than a second from the leader. And Marquez could have done better: he had more than half a second on his own reference to the third sector when he decided to return to his pit.

Quartararo lost several positions, notably to Pecco Bagnaia. Yamaha informed the championship leader that the winner of the last two races was in his wheel and Quartararo stood up, obviously unwilling to give his main rival for the world crown any clues.

Marquez’s 2’05 “156 was a benchmark for a long time, but Miller came close to 0” 123. Miguel Oliveira moved up to third, ahead of Takaaki Nakagami and Fabio Quartararo, whose body language in the garage showed the movements of his Yamaha at turn 9, remained very bumpy even though several parts of the track were redone.

Marquez tumbles down the rankings … and regains the lead

In the last ten minutes, several pilots embarked on the exercise of time attack, with a soft tire at the rear. Bagnaia took the lead but was soon beaten by Nakagami. Miller interposed himself between the two men and was scared in the wake of the first turn, narrowly avoiding the fall. Quartararo took first place with less than three minutes from the end of the session.

Márquez tumbled down to 11th place before taking control again, 0.202 ahead of Quartararo. Pol Espargaró confirmed Honda’s good form by moving up to third place. Marquez was on the verge of improving his time but an error l ‘ The Catalan nevertheless remained leader ahead of Miller, who took third place in Quartararo under the checkered flag.Pol Espargaró and Nakagami completed a top 5 in which three Honda representatives were present.

Pecco Bagnaia took sixth place ahead of Jorge Martín, Johann Zarco, Álex Rins and the sensation of the moment, Enea Bastianini. Joan Mir, who was almost ejected from his Suzuki at turn 9 at the end of the session, settled for 13th place, ahead of Andrea Dovizioso and Franco Morbidelli, both still in a phase of adaptation. Valentino Rossi took only 17th place.

Three crashes disrupted the end of the session, for Iker Lecuona and Miguel Oliveira at turn 12 and Aleix Espargaró in the last part of the track, at very high speed but not serious for the Aprilia rider. The first ten in the afternoon are naturally the first ten in the aggregate of the first two sessions, due to the rain that fell before FP1, and are therefore the drivers who for the moment have their ticket for a direct entry into Q2.

Grand Prix of the Americas – Free Practice 2