Enea Bastianini led Leopard teammate Lorenzo Dalla Porta on the opening day of running for the Moto3 Argentine Grand Prix, with Tony Arbolino third.
Early spots of rain in the first session threatened to derail the riders' run plans, but mercifully those drops of water amounted to nothing.
Prustel GP rider Marco Bezzecchi topped the timesheets in FP1 with a 1:52.190s, with Adam Norrodin four tenths adrift in second on his Sprinta Racing Honda.
Sixth-placed Aron Canet – who slipped to 14th on the combined times at the end of FP2 – escaped punishment from Race Direction after colliding with CIP rookie Makar Yurchenko at Turn 13 in the closing stages of Turn 13, with the crash deemed a racing incident in a post-session investigation.
The cooler conditions which greeted the field at the start of FP2 saw Bezzecchi's session-topping time from the morning immediately bettered by home hero Gabriel Rodrigo with a 1:51.891s.
The RBA rider improved to a 1:51.112s with 30 minutes left on the clock, with long-time FP1 pacesetter and Qatar race winner Jorge Martin slotting into second, four tenths adrift.
Rodrigo's time stood for much of FP2, though a final flurry of laps saw him shuffled back to seventh as Bastianini took over top spot with a 1:50.535s, which he improved on his final lap to a 1:50.397s.
Dalla Porta held onto first place in FP2 very briefly in the closing stages, though found himself cast four tenth adrift in second, with Arbolino completing the top three on his Marinelli Snipers Honda.
Livio Loi dragged his Avintia Racing KTM to fourth in the closing stages from Martin and Kaito Toba, with Rodrigo ending the day seventh overall ahead of Norrodin.
Niccolo Antonelli slotted into ninth after his final lap, with Nakarin Athiratphuvapat holding onto 10th despite a crash at the end of the session at Turn 10.
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