Alex Marquez set a new all-time lap record of the Motegi circuit as he clinched top spot in the second Japanese MotoGP practice session.
The track conditions had improved after the earlier rain had impacted FP1, although it remained extremely low grip and created potential for a lot of errors.
Ai Ogura suffered a technical problem that saw smoke coming from his Trackhouse Aprilia in the first 10 minutes of Practice, which saw the red flag come out due to potential oil on the start/finish straight.
Once the session resumed, the usual contenders returned to lead the pack as Marco Bezzecchi held top spot for the majority of Practice after the red flag.
However, with just under 10 minutes left in the session, Alex Marquez showed his hand and headed to the top of the timetable with a 1:42.811s.
Pedro Acosta took second, just 0.076s off Marquez’s time, with Marc Marquez third and exactly one tenth off top spot.
Bezzecchi was demoted to fourth late on, as Enea Bastianini posted a late improvement to enter the top five.
Fabio Di Giannantonio’s only representative lap time saw him sixth, while Fabio Quartararo dragged his Yamaha to seventh over championship leader Jorge Martin in eighth.
Both LCR Honda riders crashed late on, but rounded out the top 10 as Diogo Moreira led Johann Zarco.
Fermin Aldeguer narrowly missed out in 11th, with Brad Binder 12th and Raul Fernandez 13th.
Franco Morbidelli completed his session in 14th, as Ogura found his progress derailed by the technical problem and finished 15th.
Francesco Bagnaia was 16th, while Luca Marini crashed before the red flag and took 17th over Jack Miller, who was the final rider within a second of Marquez’s best time.
Somkiat Chantra was 18th at the flag ahead of another early crasher in Alex Rins, while Toprak Razgatlioglu was 21st and Maverick Vinales rounded out the standings in 22nd.
Takaaki Nakagami suffered a collarbone fracture in his FP1 crash and was ruled out for the rest of the weekend.
Discussion about this post