Andrea Iannone set the fastest time of the weekend so far as the leading pack received a major shake-up in second practice at Losail. After the opening session was dominated by Yamaha, Ducati emerged as the team to beat in FP2 with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo down in seventh and ninth respectively.
At the start of day two, Repsol Honda appeared to be the team with most work to do but Marc Marquez made immediate progress, breaking into the 1:55s inside the first ten minutes, something he failed to do at any stage on Thursday. The Spaniard briefly led a Honda 1-2 but Iannone changed that with a 1:55.388, fractionally faster than Lorenzo’s benchmark from last night.
The Yamaha’s were conspicuous by their absence in the second session with Lorenzo spending much of the session in the garage while Rossi sent sparks flying, quite literally, when the front end of his YZR-M1 gave way at turn fourteen and only the speedy reactions of the Italian prevented an accident.
In their absence, the top of the leaderboard took on an unfamiliar look with Marquez closing the gap on Iannone, eventually finishing 0.013s adrift in second. The two-time champion was circulating with Scott Redding and the Briton consistently set overall-best sector times, only falling short in the end by a tenth of a second. The Pramac rider ended the session in third, just ahead of Maverick Vinales and Andrea Dovizioso while Dani Pedrosa dropped to sixth, one place ahead of Rossi.
Hector Barbera finished eighth despite failing to better his FP1 time while Lorenzo was ninth after doing the same. Danilo Petrucci, injured hand and all, produced a stand-out performance to round out the top ten but Cal Crutchlow joined his compatriot Bradley Smith in having an accident, losing the front at the final corner and falling to thirteenth.
2016 COMMERCIAL BANK GRAND PRIX OF QATAR (FP2 CLASSIFICATION)
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