Miguel Oliveira bounced back after being pipped in the dying seconds of FP1 by dominating FP2 under the floodlights at Losail. The Portuguese rider led the way for almost the entire 40 minute session with Niccolo Antonelli the only rider to get within half a second as KTM grabbed the advantage away from Honda at the end of day one.
Danny Kent had clocked the fastest time in FP1 and although Oliveira didn’t match that initially, the 20 year old was a class above the opposition early on. Miguel’s first representative lap stopped the clock at 2:07.012 with Kent six tenths adrift in third but three minutes from the end of the session, the no.44 extended his lead with back-to-back laps under the 2:07 barrier, the second of which took him past the Briton’s earlier benchmark.
Antonelli ignored a late-session rain shower to go second ahead of Isaac Vinales who made a seven-tenth jump from first practice to go third. Romano Fenati took fourth ahead of former teammate Francesco Bagnaia, the Mahindra rider ensuring four constructors made up the top five spots in second practice.
Fabio Quartararo was another big improver to finish sixth ahead of the impressive Livio Loi while Kent’s failure to match his early evening heroics saw him drop to eighth. Jorge Navarro also failed to hit the same heights in tenth while fellow rookie Jorge Martin suffered a painful blow when his Mahindra highsided at the final corner.
