Jorge Martin fastest again as Marc Marquez fails to secure top ten
Jorge Martin has made it a Friday clean sweep at the French MotoGP, while Marc Marquez failed to secure an automatic Q2 spot.
After a very strong start to Q2, Marc Marquez smashed his fastest lap in FP1 to go half a second clear of Jorge Martin at the start of second practice.
Extremely fast in sector four, Marquez was challenged by Pedro Acosta but the KTM rider couldn’t match the eight-time world champion in the final section of the circuit.
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Acosta eventually got the better of Marquez before being joined at the front by both Pertamina Enduro VR46 riders Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marco Bezzecchi.
Marquez then crashed his Ducati machine coming in the final couple of corners as he washed out the front-end of his Gresini bike at turn 12.
Marquez slowly made his way back to pit lane under the assistance of marshals who were pushing the number 93.
Maverick Vinales then usurped Acosta at the head of the leaderboard before Francesco Bagnaia moved into P2.
Following his spill at the end of FP1, Brad Binder, who was fourth fastest after the opening stint, suffered another crash in what was turning into a difficult day for the factory KTM star.
As Binder returned to pit lane, Marquez headed back out on circuit with the same soft rear tyre that he crashed with.
Marquez improved his personal best time although it wasn’t enough to move up from P10.
A rider who did improve his position on a used soft rear tyre was Martin, as the series leader went from seventh to first.
After a lull in the action, the final third of Practice 2 began with the factory Ducati duo setting very fast lap times.
Bastianini moved up to second spot behind Martin, before Bagnaia powered his GP24 bike to top spot.
Bagnaia was swiftly bumped down to second as Aleix Espargaro showed Aprilia’s true pace.
Di Giannantonio then smashed the top time as he went quickest by over four tenths from Acosta.
Di Giannantonio’s sub 1m 31s lap was proving tough to match although Acosta did reduce the gap to just over half a tenth.
Martin then set the new benchmark time of 1:30.531s after gaining a chunk of time over Di Giannantonio in sectors three and four.
Not comfortable at all with his GP23, Marquez then suffered another big moment on the exit of turn six as he nearly highsided.
There were late falls for Bastianini and Binder, with the latter making it three crashes in one day.
The surprise of Practice 2 was Marc Marquez who failed to secure a top ten, however, Fabio Quartararo put his Yamaha inside the top ten.
