Practice report
MotoGP French GP
Smith grabs top practice time for Tech 3
Bradley Smith thrilled his Tech 3 Yamaha team by topping the timesheets in second practice at Le Mans ahead of Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso.
Gordon Hatch
Edited: May 15, 2015, 3:37 PM
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The British rider set the fastest time of 1m33.179s in the closing stages to beat factory Yamaha rider Lorenzo by 0.179s, only to fall right at the end of the session, without injury, at the final corner - although nobody was able to beat his time.
Lorenzo held the top spot for the majority of the session, beating the early benchmark set by FP1 pacesetter Dovizioso by just over two tenths, with Smith slotting into third soon after before his late jump to the top of the times.
Dovizioso nonetheless impressed aboard the Ducati GP15, improved on his fastest lap in FP1 to record a 1m33.553s. Cal Crutchlow also improved from the morning and finished fourth on the LCR Honda.
Despite appearing to be pushing at the limit, reigning champion Marc Marquez was unable to threaten the frontrunners near the end of the session. The Repsol Honda rider set the fifth fastest time, half a second off the pace, one place ahead of points leader Valentino Rossi on the second factory Yamaha.
The returning Dani Pedrosa further improved his set-up on the factory RC213V and set the seventh fastest time ahead of the Espargaro brothers, with Tech 3's Pol leading factory Suzuki rider Aleix. Both fell during the session, the latter in the same place as Smith.
Yonny Hernandez rounded out the top 10 for the Pramac Ducati team, one place ahead of a suffering Andrea Iannone, while the bragging rights for best Open Class rider of the day went to Jack Miller on the LCR Honda in 13th.
Practice results:
Pos Rider Bike Time/Gap 1 Bradley Smith Yamaha 1m33.179 2 Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 0.190 3 Andrea Dovizioso Ducati 0.374 4 Cal Crutchlow Honda 0.473 5 Marc Marquez Honda 0.491 6 Valentino Rossi Yamaha 0.507 7 Dani Pedrosa Honda 0.546 8 Pol Espargaro Yamaha 0.724 9 Aleix Espargaro Suzuki 0.765 10 Yonny Hernandez Ducati 0.774 11 Andrea Iannone Ducati 0.913 12 Maverick Vinales Suzuki 0.931 13 Jack Miller Honda 1.074 14 Scott Redding Honda 1.192 15 Stefan Bradl Yamaha Forward 1.364 16 Danilo Petrucci Ducati 1.389 17 Nicky Hayden Honda 1.484 18 Hector Barbera Ducati 1.566 19 Loris Baz Yamaha Forward 1.823 20 Mike Di Meglio Ducati 1.888 21 Karel Abraham Honda 1.911 22 Alvaro Bautista Aprilia 1.958 23 Eugene Laverty Honda 2.003 24 Alex de Angelis ART 2.759 25 Marco Melandri Aprilia 2.877
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