Sam Lowes continued his astonishing practice performance by dominating the second Moto2 session on Thursday night at Losail. The Briton was on top of the timesheets for the entirety of the 45 minute session with defending champion Esteve Rabat the only rider able to get remotely close to Lowes’ time.
Having clocked the first ever sub-two-minute lap of Losail, Lowes had a tough act to follow but the Speed Up rider’s first run in FP2 saw him reel off a series of blistering laps that saw his lead at the top grow and grow. Within four laps, Lowes was into the mid-2:00s bracket with Johann Zarco and Thomas Luthi snapping at his heels but the no.22 kept lowering the target time, eventually clocking a 2:00.025.
Not even a mid-session rain shower affected the Lincolnshire rider who continued to set a fierce pace, suggesting his race pace is just as formidable as his single-lap performance. Rabat was unfazed too though, not even pulling into the pits when the rain began to intensify, and when conditions improved again, the Spaniard managed to clock a 2:00.368 good enough for second.
Johann Zarco failed to match his FP1 pace and fell to third with Axel Pons making a sizable leap forward, bringing him onto the tail of the Frenchman in fourth. Takaaki Nakagami suggested he may be about to make a long-overdue return to form with the fifth-fastest time, edging out Thomas Luthi, while Sandro Cortese and Xavier Simeon set identical times to finish seventh and eighth respectively.
