Quartararo maintains Portimao advantage over Bagnaia and Miller
For the second time today, new MotoGP champion Fabio Quartararo beat Francesco Bagnaia and Jack Miller to top spot.
At the start of FP2 it was Valentino Rossi who was the first rider to improve his lap time relative to FP1, however, it wasn’t enough to move him up the order as he remained last.
LCR Honda riders Alex Marquez and Takaaki Nakagami then joined Rossi in making improvements to their personal best times from this morning, but unlike the nine-time world champion, both riders moved up the order with 11th and 12th.
That soon turned into third and sixth on combined times for the Honda duo. Bagnaia was first in challenging Fabio Quartararo’s overall top time.
The Ducati rider set back-to-back laps that would have been good enough for fourth this morning - two tenths shy of the Frenchman’s top time.
Once Quartararo got up to speed, the top two in the championship resumed their battle for P1 as the Yamaha rider went half a tenth quicker with 15 minutes gone.
Suzuki rider Joan Mir then split the pair by going second - +0.018s off of Quartararo’s best effort.
With 16 minutes left, Bagnaia set the quickest lap of the weekend to date - nearly two tenths better than what Quartararo managed earlier in the day.
Mir, who looked a lot more like his normal self throughout today’s running, set back-to-back laps under the 1m 40s barrier to lead the way.
But, Mir was soon relegated to fourth as Quartararo, Bagnaia and Miller all went faster as the chequered flag dropped.
Behind the top four was Pol Espargaro in fifth - second top seven finish of the day, while Johann Zarco, Marquez, Aleix Espargaro, Nakagami and Alex Rins rounded out the top ten.
Home favorite Miguel Oliveira was unable to make any real improvements from FP1, as was the case for fellow KTM riders Iker Lecuona, Danilo Petrucci and Brad Binder. Petrucci ended up quickest of the four in P13.
Regarding the three rookies, Jorge Martin was quickest of the three in 11th, while team-mate Luca Marini and Enea Bastianini finished 15th and 16th.
