Rossi, Lorenzo and Luthi the fastest in FP2 at Circuit Catalunya

The second free practice sessions of the Motorcycle World Championship took place on a perfect track, with good weather and all the riders warming up their engines for tomorrow’s QP. The first category to go out was Moto3, dominated by Louis Rossi. The Frenchman placed 1st and dominated with a lap time of 1:52.624, leaving second-placed Maverick Viñales 0.150s behind.

Rossi was the fastest, and he places himself as one of the favourites. It’s clear he is comfortable at the Circuit de Catalunya and has a good feeling, but he could not open up much of a gap over one of the home riders: Maverick was just over a tenth behind and will keep fighting in FP3 and especially in the QP. Completing the top 5 were Sandro Cortese in 3rd, Miguel Oliveira in 4th and Danny Kent in 5th.

Meanwhile, the top 10 went to Romano Fenati in 6th, Héctor Faubel 7th, Khairuddin 8th, Luis Salom 9th and Alexis Masbou 10th. As for the rest of the Spanish riders, Efrén Vázquez placed 11th, Alberto Moncayo 16th, Álex Márquez 18th, Isaac Viñales 25th, Iván Moreno 26th and Adrián Martín 27th.

In the MotoGP category, Jorge Lorenzo made a statement in this free practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya, setting the best time with a 1:42.099, close to dipping under 1:41 and with great pace from lap to lap, so the 99 is one of the favourites for the QP. We can’t overlook that Álvaro Bautista also had a very interesting free practice today: it’s clear Bauti is very comfortable at this track and will make trouble, achieving the 2nd best time in MotoGP, just 0.207s behind the Yamaha rider, so a very, very, very good setup for the 19.

Completing the top 5 were Cal Crutchlow in 3rd, Andrea Dovizioso in 4th and Héctor Barberá in 5th. So the Yamaha men dominated these second free practice sessions, while Barberá was the best Ducati in this afternoon’s first contact with the Catalan track, ahead of the Italian factory’s official riders.

The top 10 with Ben Spies 6th, Dani Pedrosa 7th, Stefan Bradl 8th, Nicky Hayden 9th and Casey Stoner 10th. It’s unusual to see the HRCs so far back, but they will surely be fighting for the top positions tomorrow in both FP3 and the QP, which is what really matters. The best CRT was Aleix Espargaró, a very good session for the Power Electronics rider, who was the best of the other championship. The other Spaniard left on the grid, Iván Silva, was 18th, fighting with his CRT.

The Moto2 category was, as always, full of fighting, although today we saw a clear dominator: Thomas Luthi set a spectacular 1:46.768 on his fifth lap, leaving the rest almost a second behind. The Swiss rider surprised everyone with this time, although in the end he had a crash without physical consequences, but was unable to finish FP2.

Behind him came Scott Redding in 2nd, more than four tenths off Luthi’s time, pushing the Kalex hard to try to catch the Suter of the first-placed rider, while completing the top 5 were Pol Espargaró in 3rd, Andrea Iannone in 4th and Alex de Angelis in 5th. Very good, Polyccio, the best home rider with good pace, so the 40 is ready for tomorrow in a category that will give us a lot of movement at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The top 10 went to Nakagami 6th, Zarco 7th, Krummenacher 8th, Corsi 9th and Elías 10th, an interesting Toni, who knows the track very well and seems to be getting the hang of the Suter of Team Aspar step by step. For the rest of our riders it did not go so well: Márquez seems to have had problems with his bike and could not set a fast time during the whole of FP2, but they will surely fix it for FP3.

The Spanish riders placed 12th Marc Márquez, 13th Tito Rabat, 14th Ricky Cardús, 18th Jordi Torres, 20th Nico Terol, 25th Julián Simón, 26th Axel Pons, 29th Angel Rodriguez and Elena Rosell 32nd; the rider suffered a crash, luckily nothing serious it seems. We also wanted to comment on Torres’s position: the CEV rider’s adaptation to this Tech3 machine has been spectacular, so watch out for Simeon’s replacement, who can produce surprises at a circuit he knows very well.

Tomorrow FP3 and QP at the Circuit de Catalunya.

Photo | MotoGP Official website