Oliveira, Stoner and Redding dominate the 2nd Free Practice of the World Championship at Estoril

The World Motorcycle Championship held the second free practice sessions today at the Estoril Circuit, with the fastest riders on a tricky track with wet patches being Miguel Oliveira in Moto3, Ben Spies in MotoGP and Scott Redding in Moto2.

The Moto3 category was an intense battle between two riders above all, Sandro Cortese and Miguel Oliveira. The KTM rider dominated for most of the free practice session, but in the final moments he saw the home rider, the Portuguese, steal the best lap time with a 1:48.497, quite far from the times set with the 125cc last season, when Nico Terol achieved a 1:47.

The track was tricky for the smaller category, as the surface was quite dry, but there were wet patches that caused more than one scare. But this did not slow Miguel Oliveira’s pace at Estoril, followed by Sandro Cortese, with Luis Salom 3rd, Maverick Viñales 4th and Alexis Masbou 5th completing the top 5.

M. Viñales was penalised during FP2 when he was setting a good time, as he overtook when a yellow flag was being shown. It is a shame the Catalan did not see this signal, although it did not affect the final result, as he finished from the 4th place he had been set.

The top 10 is Romano Fenati 6th, Danny Kent 7th, Louis Rossi 8th, Adrián Martín 9th and Arthur Sissis 10th. As for the Spanish riders, this FP2 closed with Efrén Vázquez 11th, Héctor Faubel 12th, Alex Rins 14th, Alberto Moncayo 15th, Joan Olivé 19th, Alex Márquez 23rd, Iván Moreno 25th and Isaac Viñales 26th.

The MotoGP category was a fine battle above all between Ben Spies and Casey Stoner. It is clear the Yamaha rider has overcome the problems he had in the previous races and is now ready to fight, although he finished just over 3 tenths behind the Australian’s time, while behind them Cal Crutchlow placed very close to Spies’ time and 0.346s from Stoner.

The first Spaniard placed in this FP2 was Dani Pedrosa in 4th, while behind him in 5th was Jorge Lorenzo, who took these free practice sessions calmly but without pause, maintaining a good pace on a track where there were still some wet patches.

Completing the top 10 were Álvaro Bautista 6th, Nicky Hayden 7th, Héctor Barberá 8th, Valentino Rossi 9th and Andrea Dovizioso 10th. It is very interesting to see Bautista demonstrating his adaptation to the Honda; he is improving and now he is among the front runners, while the first Ducati was the 69, leaving Barberá with his GPZero behind, just ahead of the other GP12, Rossi’s.

The remaining positions went to Karel Abraham 11th, Stefan Bradl 12th, Randy De Puniet 13th, Alex Espargaró 14th, Yonny Hernández 15th, Mattia Pasini 16th, Michele Pirro 17th, Colin Edwards 18th, Iván Silva 19th, Danilo Petrucci 20th and James Ellison 21st. So the first CRT was the Frenchman’s from Power Electronics Aspar, De Puniet.

The Moto2 category left the British rider, Scott Redding, as the fastest. The 45 got his act together and gave no respite in this FP2 of the intermediate class; every time a rider overtook him at Estoril, he would pass them back on the following lap, beating that time. He finally set a superb 1:41.775, being the only rider along with Marc Márquez to run a 1:41.

Behind Redding was Marc Márquez, just 0.203s off the Briton’s time, while the top 5 of this second free practice session at Estoril was completed by Thomas Luthi 3rd, Toni Elías 4th and Pol Espargaró 5th. Undoubtedly great news to see the Team Aspar rider in the front positions; it was about time we saw Elías in those places. It is a tricky category, but the 24 knows what it takes to control this situation. Also very interesting is Pol Espargaró from 5th position; the young Espargaró is surely coming with his batteries charged after his victory at Jerez and is after more in Portugal.

Completing the top 10 were Bradley Smith 6th, Alex De Angelis 7th, Dominique Aegerter 8th, Johann Zarco 9th and Mika Kallio 10th. For the rest of the Spanish riders, things went as follows, with a great Ricky Cardús from 11th position, followed by Nico Terol 18th, Julián Simón 21st, Tito Rabat 22nd, Axel Pons 23rd, Ángel Rodríguez 29th and Elena Rosell 31st. It was a shame about Rodri’s crash at the start of the free practice session, which meant the 47 could not take part in the sessions, as the bike was badly damaged.

Tomorrow is FP3 at Estoril and then the real action, the QP.

Photo: MotoGP Official website