Martin secures Q2 spot but Bagnaia misses out after mind games are used

Maverick Vinales tops Friday MotoGP practice at Valencia as Jorge Martin uses mind games against Francesco Bagnaia.

24 Nov 2023

Jorge Martin, Pramac Ducati MotoGP Valencia 2023

Setting a red hot pace, as he did in FP1, Fabio Di Giannantonio was the early pacesetter and second practice got lit up by a flurry of crashes.

The first rider to go down was Aleix Espargaro as the Aprilia rider went down at turn one.

Espargaro’s fall was quickly followed by Marco Bezzecchi who went down in violent fashion at turn eight.

One of the fastest corners on the circuit, Bezzecchi was the third rider to crash at that corner after Joan Mir (the Repsol Honda rider was ruled out of Practice 2) and Takaaki Nakagami went down at that corner this morning.

Augusto Fernandez then made it three fallers in quick succession after losing the front-end of his KTM at turn 14.

Making his return to MotoGP action for the final time as a Honda rider, Alex Rins then went down at turn one.

While all this was happening, Di Giannantonio continued to lead as he broke into the 1m 29s barrier.

Alex Marquez briefly made it a Gresini Ducati 1-2 before Fabio Quartararo jumped up to second place.

After making a slow start to FP1, the same transpired for Francesco Bagnaia in second Practice as he sat in 15th with 20 minutes gone.

The reigning world champion then jumped up to eighth, one place behind title rival Jorge Martin.

Showing some very strong pace for the first time in Practice 2, Brad Binder launched his KTM into contention as he went second quickest with just over half the session remaining.

Keen to set an early time attack banker, Marc Marquez and Martin both used a soft tyre to full effect as the former narrowly went quickest.

Martin then went quickest on his next lap around although it still wasn’t enough to secure the lap record.

The lap record set by Jorge Lorenzo didn’t last long though as Maverick Vinales cama cross the line with a time of 1:29.392s.

Also out on a new soft rear, Jack Miller suffered a big highside at turn three.

There was drama with 14 minutes remaining as a red flag was deployed when Miller’s crash resulted in debris falling onto the track. But after a very short delay the on-track action got back underway.

With Bagnaia struggling and Martin safely inside the top five, the Pramac rider was using mind games to try and distract the world champion.

Entering pit lane, exiting pit lane together and running off circuit when Bagnaia did so, Martin made sure to remain behind the factory Ducati rider.

Bagnaia’s only chance at improving due to yellow flags came on his penultimate lap, however, the Italian only managed 14th while Martin finished second.