Johann Zarco led the way in Friday morning's rescheduled FP2 session as both of the men ahead of him in the championship suffered accidents. The session took place in sunny, dry conditions but damp patches remained after the recent wet weather.
The track was also fairly cold and that caught out yesterday's pacesetter Jonas Fogler. The German slid off in the first few minutes of the one-hour session but was able to rejoin the session late on. Championship leader Nicolas Terol wasn't quite as lucky after suffering a high side half way through and will enter this afternoon's qualifying on his back foot.
With his two chief rivals out of the way, Zarco consistently lapped quicker than anyone else and stretched his advantage to eight tenths of a second with a 1:44.336, the fastest lap of the weekend so far.
Avant-AirAsia-Ajo teammate Efren Vazquez had a brief spell at the top before finishing second fastest ahead of Sandro Cortese who also crashed in the closing minutes of the session. Jonas Folger recovered from his early spill to take fourth, 0.974s behind Zarco while Maverick Vinales improved late on to go fifth.
Sergio Gadea was sixth on the second Blusens by Paris Hilton Aprilia ahead of Luis Salom while Hector Faubel was the fastest of the Aspar Aprilias in eighth. Simone Grotzkyj finished ninth while Britain's Danny Kent rounded out the top ten.
Danny Webb had another impressive session for Mahindra and led the session at one stage before finishing in 12th place and will be targeting his best qualifying result of the year this afternoon. Taylor Mackenzie was out of the classroom and bike on his bike on Friday morning while Harry Stafford will have also been relieved to get some track time after missing yesterday's single session.
