Reigning MotoGP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo increased his lead over the chasing pack in today's second free practice session at Jerez but it is Yamaha stablemate Cal Crutchlow who is a little less than two-tenths behind the Spaniard as the best of the rest telescoped together.
Lorenzo clocked a 1'39.562 on only his fourth lap of 18 this afternoon at the Spanish circuit, compared to Crutchlow's 1'39.733 but the top four are only covered by a little over three-tenths of a second with Dani Pedrosa, on the leading Repsol bike, demoted to third place on a 1'39.757. The top three riders set their fastest laps early on in the session and didn't go faster.
Factory Yamaha's Valentino Rossi and Spanish wunderkind Marc Marquez duked it out for fourth place right until the chequered flag, with nine-time champion Rossi winning out on a 1'39.874 but he was only 0.015 faster than the Austin race winner. Alvaro Bautista occupied his usual sixth place on the sheet but is nearly a second off the pace.
Andrea Iannone bounced into seventh with a late lap to push Hector Barbera's CRT entry into eighth and he is one slot ahead of Aleix Espargaro, also CRT-mounted, with Nicky Hayden on the works Ducati rounding out the top ten.
Bradley Smith was just behind Michele Pirro in 13th with Michael Laverty reducing his gap to the front to just 3.4s.