Pol Espargaro produced the fastest ever lap of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on a Moto2 machine to outpace Marc Marquez on Friday afternoon. The Pons rider trails Marquez by 34 points but had a full half-second over him today, boosting his hopes of closing the gap this weekend.
Espargaro had already set the pace in the morning session and hit the front in FP2 with half an hour to go. His 1:44.308 was still fractionally slower than the FP1 benchmark though and Marquez would be the first to beat that on a 1:44.143, a lead that would prove rather brief. With two minutes remaining, Espargaro displayed his dominance with a 1:43.649, taking over half a second off the circuit record. To add insult to injury, he chipped another tenth off his best time minutes later.
The afternoon didn’t go totally to plan for the Pons 40 HP team though with Esteve Rabat dropping his Kalex at the final corner midway through the session having got as high as second at one point. He wasn’t the biggest name to go down though with Thomas Luthi losing the front end of his Suter at turn three on his first flying lap. The Swiss rider returned to the track later on though but couldn’t climb higher than thirteenth.
Behind the top two, Claudio Corti was an impressive third ahead of Scott Redding who looks to have continued his strong form from the first half of the season. Reigning 125cc champion Nicolas Terol, who can’t boast as good a record, gave himself a timely lift with fifth place with Dominique Aegerter completing the top six.
After struggling for pace all day, Bradley Smith salvaged seventh with an excellent late effort with Simone Corsi, the aforementioned Rabat and Andrea Iannone rounding out the top ten. Gino Rea will be reasonably satisfied with his Friday form, having gone nineteenth on the Gresini Suter.
Moto2 Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix: Combined Friday Practice Classification
Pos | Rider | Constructor | Team | Time/Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | ![]() |
Kalex | Pons 40 HP Tuenti | 1:43.575 |
2 | ![]() |
Suter | Team CatalunyaCaixa Repsol | +0.568 |
3 | ![]() |
Kalex | Italtrans Racing Team | +0.894 |
4 | ![]() |
Kalex | Marc VDS Racing Team | +0.937 |
5 | ![]() |
Suter | Mapfre Aspar Team Moto2 | +1.152 |
6 | ![]() |
Suter | Technomag-CIP | +1.178 |
7 | ![]() |
Tech 3 | Tech 3 Racing | +1.197 |
8 | ![]() |
FTR | Came IodaRacing Project | +1.249 |
9 | ![]() |
Kalex | Pons 40 HP Tuenti | +1.502 |
10 | ![]() |
Speed Up | Speed Master | +1.529 |
11 | ![]() |
Kalex | Marc VDS Racing Team | +1.565 |
12 | ![]() |
Suter | Blusens Avintia | +1.585 |
13 | ![]() |
Suter | Interwetten-Paddock | +1.629 |
14 | ![]() |
AJR | Arguiñano Racing Team | +1.659 |
15 | ![]() |
Kalex | Italtrans Racing Team | +1.669 |
16 | ![]() |
Tech 3 | Tech 3 Racing | +1.848 |
17 | ![]() |
Motobi | JIR Moto2 | +1.994 |
18 | ![]() |
Speed Up | QMMF Racing Team | +2.035 |
19 | ![]() |
Suter | Federal Oil Gresini Moto2 | +2.333 |
20 | ![]() |
FTR | NGM Mobile Forward Racing | +2.391 |
21 | ![]() |
Suter | GP Team Switzerland | +2.663 |
22 | ![]() |
MZ-RE Honda | Cresto Guide MZ Racing | +2.678 |
23 | ![]() |
Kalex | Kiefer Racing | +2.883 |
24 | ![]() |
FTR | NGM Mobile Forward Racing | +2.934 |
25 | ![]() |
Kalex | Pons 40 HP Tuenti | +3.010 |
26 | ![]() |
Suter | Technomag-CIP | +3.013 |
27 | ![]() |
Suter | Mapfre Aspar Team Moto2 | +3.682 |
28 | ![]() |
Bimota | Desguaces La Torre SAG | +3.883 |
29 | ![]() |
Suter | Thai Honda Gresini Moto2 | +4.194 |
30 | ![]() |
Motobi | JIR Moto2 | +5.104 |
31 | ![]() |
Speed Up | S/Master Speed Up | +5.873 |
32 | ![]() |
FTR | SAG Team | +5.908 |
33 | ![]() |
Moriwaki | QMMF Racing Team | +6.175 |