Britain’s Bradley Smith shot to the top of the second MotoGP free practice session at Le Mans this afternoon when increased track temperatures saw laptimes drop by almost a second but the Monster Yamaha man slid off at the final chicane on his last lap.
Smith set a 1’33.179 - 1.6s faster than FP1 - to go two tenths clear of Jorge Lorenzo at the top of the tree. The Spaniard set his best on only his fourth lap of the session, then concentrated on race setup while third-placed man Andrea Dovizioso put in a time attack at session-end to go third with a 1’33.553.
Cal Crutchlow also set his best time on his last lap to take fourth spot on a 1’33.652, one place ahead of reigning champion Marc Marquez, making the CWM LCR man the leading Honda in the session.
Valentino Rossi ended the day in sixth place after using the soft rear tyre for most of the session, one ahead of Dani Pedrosa who set a 1’33.725 but in obvious pain when sitting in his garage, trying to get blood flowing through his recently-operated-on arm.
Pol Espargaro suffered a crash which halted his run of fast laps and he finished in eighth. Brother Aleix was one place behind but also crashed at the same time as Smith but in a separate incident at the same corner.
Yonny Hernandez confirmed his pace with tenth place with Andrea Iannone, who dislocated his shoulder in a test crash at Mugello mid-week. Maverick Vinales also walked away from a spill but re-mounted to set the 12th quickest time.
Jack Miller was the fastest of the Open bikes and put his Honda one place ahead of the works-spec RC213V of Scott Redding, who ended in 14th place and 1.192s off the pace. Eugene Laverty made some progress in the afternoon and cut his gap to two seconds.
