MotoGP Catalunya: Espargaro edges Marquez in second session
Ecstar Suzuki’s Aleix Espargaro used his softest-option rear Bridgestone to claim top spot on the opening day of MotoGP free practice at Catalunya edging out reigning champion Marc Marquez despite a six mile per hour top-speed difference.
Espargaro put in a 1’41.158 with his final lap of the day and beat Marquez’ 1’41.443 by 0.285s with the second Repsol Honda of Dani Pedrosa third on a 1’41.789 despite using a different verison of the RC213V.
Marquez has switched to a new exhaust, swingarm and electronics at Catalunya while Pedrosa has stuck to the older bike and also used a different tyre setup too so it may be HRC have fixed the aggression problem for Marquez and Pedrosa is riding it a different way.
Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso hopped into third place with his last lap but was then dumped down to fourth by Pedrosa and the Italian finds himself 0.665s behind Espargaro even though he used the same soft-option tyre the GP15 is allowed to run.
Maverick Vinales took the second Suzuki to fifth place with a 1’41.992 with Andrea Iannone next along, only increasing his pace by a couple of hundredths of a second over his best this morning.
Jorge Lorenzo was again the quickest Yamaha but the winner of the last three races finds himself down in seventh place and 0.876s off the pace, just head of Britain’s Cal Crutchlow. Pol Espargaro ended his day in ninth place on the combined sheet.
A late run on the medium tyre saw Valentino Rossi leap into third with five minutes left but he slid back down to 11th place, one behind Scott Redding who picked himself up from a crash at turn ten to set a 1’42.354 for tenth place and the last automatic qualifying two place. If it rains tomorrow morning, as it was supposed this afternoon, Rossi will have to go into qualifying one.
Yonny Hernandez dropped down to 12th place while Nicky Hayden couldn’t match his time from this morning but remained ahead of Bradley Smith in 13th place. The Monster Yamaha man improved by three-quarters of a second over lunch but is still struggling.
Eugene Laverty finished in 19th place, finding seven tenths between sessions and finishing ahead of Jack Miller while still using the old swingarm the rest of the Open Hondas have upgraded from.
