Tony Arbolino led an all-Italian top three in second practice ahead of Sunday’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The Marinelli Snipers rider narrowly edged out championship leader Marco Bezzecchi and SIC58’s Niccolo Antonelli in a session which saw the first drops of rain briefly interrupt proceedings.
Under grey skies, the lightweight class riders flooded out on track for the start of FP2 with Arbolino immediately on the pace, lapping within a quarter of a second of Philipp Oettl’s morning benchmark. Bezzecchi soon sprung to life after a quiet morning session, shaving 12 thousandths of a second off his compatriot’s time to go fastest, moments before the rain arrived.
Fortunately, the drizzle passed quickly and track action soon resumed, leading to a frantic dash in the remaining ten minutes. The first rider to light up the timing screens was Jaume Masia, with the Bester Capital Dubai youngster closing to within a tenth of the overall best, a time that Oettl himself was unable to get remotely close to.
With many riders circulating together in pursuit of a slipstream, Antonelli made an extraordinary leap forward with the fastest lap of the day so far, a 2:05.029. Further improvements were still to come though with Bezzecchi and Arbolino circulating together, a tactic that clearly paid off with the pair just 0.008s apart in the low 2:04s, Tony having the advantage.
Gabriel Rodrigo was fourth quickest ahead of Aron Canet who shrugged off an early confrontation with Enea Bastianini to finish fifth. Oettl did finally top his FP1 stunner to go sixth ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio, Jakub Kornfeil and Tatsuki Suzuki while a seemingly off-form Jorge Martin could only manage tenth, a full second off the pace.
Both British wildcards had unfortunate offs during the afternoon with Jake Archer sliding off at Becketts, moments before Motostar champion Tom Booth-Amos lost the front end of his Honda as he tipped into Vale.
2018 Moto3 GoPro British Grand Prix (FP2)
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