Injured MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez found some pace in the second free practice session at Jerez, pulling himself up to third on the combined timesheets after scraping into the top ten this morning.
Marquez has a broken finger on his left hand which has necessitated a modified handlebar grip to be attached to his Repsol Honda RC213V and he is only a quarter of a second behind Jorge Lorenzo, lapping at 1’39.428 this afternoon, compared to the Yamaha man’s best of 1’39.174 set this morning.
Grip at Jerez tends to fall away with afternoon heat, so the afternoon’s times are more indicative of what may happen in a race. Lorenzo and second placed man Aleix Espargaro didn’t better their times in the second session but Lorenzo was still ahead of Marquez with a 1’34.300, set on his 14th lap of 20.
Marquez and Lorenzo spent a good deal of the session on the hard rear Bridgestone with the Movistar-backed Lorenzo switching to the medium right at the end of the session in order to get some idea of qualifying pace.
Espargaro’s time from this morning was set on the softest-available tyre while Ducati’s Andrea Iannone used the same rubber to jump into fourth place on the combined sheet, just ahead of team-mate Andrea Dovizioso, also soft-shod.
Pramac Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci showed pace in both sessions, ending up in sixth place, just ahead of Britain’s Cal Crutchlow. The CWM LCR man was on hard rubber front and rear, doing 14 laps in the second session to record a time two-tenths slower than his best in the morning.
Pol Espargaro resorted to his second bike in the afternoon as his number one went pop right at the start. His lap of 1’39.871 set this morning was a tenth better than his best of the day and 0.001s faster than Valentino Rossi, who spend the whole session on the hard rear.
Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales made it into the top ten, just edging out Hector Barbera. Scott Redding will need to find a few tenths in the morning to guarantee his place in secoond qualifying. He finished the day in 12th on a 1’39.167.
Eugene Laverty, on the Gresini Open Honda, finished in 15th place, one ahead of Bradley Smith, who used the hard tyre right until his final run when he switched to the soft to record a 1’40.293.
