Quartararo beats Dovizioso in Catalunya MotoGP FP2 – MotoGP

Petronas SRT Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo led the way in second MotoGP practice of the Catalan Grand Prix weekend, beating Andrea Dovizioso by 0.281 seconds.

The French rookie, who underwent arm pump surgery in the lead-up to the Barcelona round, beat Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso with a 1m40.079s at the chequered flag to end up as the Friday pace-setter.

The Catalunya circuit was hit by a sprinkle of rain late in the preceding Moto3 practice session, but this did not prevent the premier-class riders from running laptimes comparable to FP1 from the get-go.

Championship leader Marc Marquez followed the two works Ducatis on his first run and briefly held the lead but was soon surpassed by Ducati stablemate Jack Miller, the Pramac rider posting the first sub-1m41s lap of the session with a 1m40.948s.

This kept him top past the halfway point of the 45-minute session, although Dovizioso and Suzuki’s Alex Rins both lapped within just a couple of hundredths off the pace in that time.

Rins crashed at Turn 4 at the start of FP2, running straight through the gravel and jumping off his GSX-RR – but started climbing the order once he was back out, eventually taking the lead from Miller with a 1m40.727s.

When much of the pack equipped fresh softs in the very end, Quartararo’s teammate Franco Morbidelli fired in the new best lap of the weekend with a 1m40.585s, only to be immediately beaten by a 1m40.360s from Dovizioso.

Quartararo came up 0.006s short of Dovizioso moments later, and was trailing him by a similar margin after three sectors of his final attempt, yet found a quarter of a second at the end of the lap to end up top on a 1m40.079s.

Dovizioso held on to second place, ahead of the year-old Honda bike of LCR rider Takaaki Nakagami and the works KTM of Pol Espargaro.

Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi spent much of the session outside of the top 10 but found some extra pace at the very end, slotting into seventh place, behind his two proteges Francesco Bagnaia (Pramac) and Morbidelli.

Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci was eighth, while Nakagami’s LCR teammate Cal Crutchlow made up the top nine as the quickest of the current-spec Hondas.

Rins didn’t improve in the closing minutes and ended up 10th, his time matched exactly by Avintia’s Karel Abraham. Unlike those ahead of him in the FP2 order, Rins is not currently on course to progress to Q2 automatically.

This is because Marquez’s FP1 time has kept him within the top 10 on the combined times, despite ending the second session in only 17th, four places behind works Honda teammate Jorge Lorenzo.

Maverick Vinales is the only Yamaha rider without a provisional Q2 spot, as he ended FP2 a spot behind Lorenzo.

KTM’s Johann Zarco and Suzuki’s Joan Mir both featured at the sharp end of the timesheets at the start of FP2, but their sessions were compromised by late crashes.

Zarco fell at the Turn 13 right-hander, with Mir following suit at the Turn 2 left-hander. They ended FP2 12th and 19th respectively.

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