Marco Bezzecchi left it late to top FP2 and lead the way on Friday at the Sachsenring in a session afflicted by a pair of red flag stoppages.
The second free practice outing of the day – which got going ten minutes behind schedule following a red flag period in an earlier Moto3 session – was slow to get going as the bulk of the field worked on completing race runs, though Miguel Oliveira managed to head the times following the first stoppage of the test caused by Takaaki Nakagami.
The LCR Honda rider lost his RC213V at the fearsome Turn 11 and slid off into the gravel but thankfully walked away, though a piece of debris from his machine remained on the circuit and thus facilitated a brief stoppage to retrieve it.
Oliveira later improved his gambit to a 1:20.862s to move into third overall as he looked to book a guaranteed spot in Saturday’s pole shootout session, though he was later relegated behind Fabio Di Gianantonio whose own effort was enough for second overall behind FP1 leader Johann Zarco.
Jorge Martin would be the first to move clear of the Frenchman as he fired in a 1:20.461s, a time that would remain unbeaten for some time until the final time attacks got underway in earnest – though another brief stoppage was called for when Marc Marquez lost his Honda on entry to Turn 1 and cleaned out Zarco.
The Pramac man was exiting the pits at the time and thankfully escaped injury like Marquez despite the front half of his Ducati being torn clean off by the impact.
With only a couple minutes left when the green light was shown for the third time in FP2, the pressure was on for the rider’s to find an improvement to secure a guaranteed Q2 spot – with Bezzecchi enjoying a handy tow from title rival Bagnaia to move clear of the rest by just 0.040s with a 1:20.271s.
Martin ended up as the bridesmaid just behind the VR46 rider, while Espargaro was bumped back to third on his Aprilia just clear of Bagnaia and KTM’s Jack Miller.
Fabio Quartararo ended his run of Q1 appearances by securing the sixth-best time for Yamaha – just 0.352s in arrears of Bezzecchi – with the sister VR46 Ducati entry of Luca Marini grabbing seventh ahead of Enea Bastianini’s factory Ducati.
Alex Marquez managed to slip through into Q2 in ninth despite crashing out at Turn 13 right at the end, while Zarco managed to hold onto the final direct-to-Q2 passage despite being unable to post another lap due to his earlier crash.
Brad Binder came just half-a-tenth-of-a-second away from bumping out Zarco on the other factory KTM, the South African narrowly edging Di Gianantonio – whose chances of improving were dashed with a crash at Turn 11 – and Augusto Fernandez.
Marc Marquez meanwhile was left with work to do after also being unable to set a time late in the session following his incident – his earlier run curtailed by a huge moment at Turn 11 that led to him gesturing wildly at the camera mounted to his Honda – leaving him 14th overnight just ahead of Oliveira.
