Practice report
MotoGP French GP
Le Mans MotoGP: Vinales tops crash-filled FP2
Maverick Vinales topped a crash-filled Friday afternoon MotoGP practice at Le Mans as his Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi was left facing a possible Q1 appearance.
David Gruz
Edited: May 17, 2019, 1:18 PM
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Championship leader Marc Marquez led most of the session but his 1m32.2s efforts were slower than Fabio Quartararo's FP1 benchmark, before times tumbled significantly at the end of FP2.
Vinales first took the lead with a 1m31.983s with three minutes remaining but he was quickly demoted by Jorge Lorenzo.
But Vinales was able to improve two more times with a 1m31.549s and then a 1m31.428s to head an ultra-close classification, in which 15 riders slotted in within one second of the fastest time.
Marquez took second but was nearly two tenths slower than Vinales, with local hero Quartararo ending up third.
The Frenchman beat Lorenzo by three thousandths of a second, while Andrea Dovizioso took fifth, only 0.02s behind.
Dovizioso was the top Ducati in what was an otherwise difficult FP2 for the Italian firm, with Danilo Petrucci crashing while exiting Turn 8 at the very beginning of the session, while Pramac Jack Miller had crashes at T3 and T11 respectively.
Petrucci recovered to sixth followed by KTM's Pol Espargaro, who also had two falls, and Aleix Espargaro, the Aprilia man another rider to crash in the end.
LCR Honda's Takaaki Nakagami took ninth as the top nine riders in the session also hold the same positions in the overall practice classification.
Franco Morbidelli completed the top 10, narrowly edging Cal Crutchlow out, the Briton challenging for the top positions before crashing at Turn 6.
Rossi had to settle for 13th as he curiously started the late-session flying laps on a medium rear tyre, and a late change to soft left him with no time to move into the combined classification top 10.
Rain is forecast for Saturday, and should it arrive to the track early enough for FP3, Rossi could be forced to fight his way through Q1 along with several other usual frontrunners.
Suzuki duo Joan Mir, whose session also ended with a crash, and Alex Rins were only 14th and 15th respectively in FP2, ahead of Miller.
But Miller still ended the day in the overall top 10, by just 0.001s ahead of Morbidelli.
FP2 results
Cla Rider Bike Laps Time Gap 1 Maverick Viñales
Yamaha 21 1'31.428 2 Marc Marquez
Honda 22 1'31.618 0.190 3 Fabio Quartararo
Yamaha 23 1'31.713 0.285 4 Jorge Lorenzo
Honda 22 1'31.716 0.288 5 Andrea Dovizioso
Ducati 21 1'31.736 0.308 6 Danilo Petrucci
Ducati 17 1'31.899 0.471 7 Pol Espargaro
KTM 12 1'31.923 0.495 8 Aleix Espargaro
Aprilia 17 1'32.132 0.704 9 Takaaki Nakagami
Honda 20 1'32.203 0.775 10 Franco Morbidelli
Yamaha 22 1'32.239 0.811 11 Cal Crutchlow
Honda 18 1'32.270 0.842 12 Francesco Bagnaia
Ducati 18 1'32.285 0.857 13 Valentino Rossi
Yamaha 20 1'32.320 0.892 14 Joan Mir
Suzuki 23 1'32.322 0.894 15 Alex Rins
Suzuki 22 1'32.385 0.957 16 Jack Miller
Ducati 15 1'32.573 1.145 17 Johann Zarco
KTM 19 1'32.574 1.146 18 Karel Abraham
Ducati 18 1'32.999 1.571 19 Andrea Iannone
Aprilia 18 1'33.141 1.713 20 Miguel Oliveira
KTM 20 1'33.401 1.973 21 Tito Rabat
Ducati 23 1'33.431 2.003 22 Hafizh Syahrin
KTM 19 1'33.903 2.475 View full results
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