Yamaha’s Maverick Viñales continued his morning form by topping Friday’s times at the Assen TT Circuit with rain preventing a further assault in the closing stages of FP2.

Marc Marquez was easily on track to match the Spaniard’s time before a brutal highside cut his lap, and session, short at turn 11 on only his fifth lap of the afternoon.

Pol Espargaro and Miguel Oliveira concluded the opening day inside the combined top-three, with the KTM rider the first to improve on FP1’s times as he sat second in the final session.

The afternoon practice got underway under a threat of rain after a smattering at the end of the Moto3 session. The Yamahas were back in charge after the opening three laps with Fabio Quartararo heading his teammate in the early stages as Danilo Petrucci continued his strong showing in third.

Johann Zarco inserted his Ducati into the mix on the fourth revolution to take second with Oliveira following suit, to third, moments later. Espargaro was back at the sharp end, in fifth, as the first 10-minutes concluded before Oliveira stormed the standings with a 1’33.400, improving on his morning efforts to sit third overall.

Viñales looked strong as he too advanced the pace, by just under two-tenths, before a vicious highside saw Marquez barrel-rolled out of contention at turn 11, cutting short his fastest lap of the day. The second Repsol of Espargaro facing a similar, albeit slower, fate at turn five on the following lap.

The pack returned to the pits after the opening 15-minutes, the action resuming with a solitary Pecco Bagnaia as the white flags were raised, spots of rain began to fall and the Ducati man returned to the garage.

With the rain continuing to fall the track remained quiet and the session counted down. Viñales sat fastest from Oliveira and Quartararo with Marquez and Joan Mir heading Zarco in the top-six. Alex Rins was seventh from Jack Miller and Alex Espargaro with his younger brother completing the all-important top-10 with 15-minutes left on the clock - the Ducati man, however, outside of the overall Q2 qualification.

Petrucci retained his place in the promotion zone thanks to his morning effort, despite sitting 11th in the session, with Jorge Martin and Alex Marquez for company. Lorenzo Savadori utilising his previous WorldSBK knowledge of the Dutch track in 14th with Iker Lecuona completing the top-15. Enea Bastianini and Brad Binder led Valentino Rossi as Bagnaia, Takaaki Nakagami, Garrett Gerloff and Luca Marini completed the FP2 times.

The closing 10-minutes allowed the field to turn their attention away from time attacks as the rain continued and they set about analysing the soft wet tyres, with Ducati instead choosing to retire their factory riders early.