Aprilia dominates in the second practice of Catalan Grand Prix

Aleix Espargaro led Aprilia teammate Maverick Vinales in the second free practice of the Catalan Grand Prix.

Espargaro first demonstrated his abilities by setting the quickest time of the weekend – a 1:40.067s – early on, an effort that he maintained until Vinales clocked a 1:39.705s to take leadership of the times.

Espargaro set the pace with a 1m40.207s lap of the Barcelona circuit 20 minutes into the 45-minute session, using medium front and rear tyres. That was the fastest lap of the weekend at the time, and it was more than half a second faster than Marco Bezzechi’s previous FP2 record.

With barely seconds left in the session, Espargaro moved his RS-GP back to the peak of the timing pylon, as the remainder of the field attempted a fast lap after spending the majority of the test completing race laps off the back of FP1.

There was no one else who could manage to beat Espargaro’s benchmark time, carrying the Friday’s honours, with Vinales holding on to second place ahead of Enea Bastianini, the first non-Aprilia, who was 0.488s behind Espargaro.

On a factory Ducati, Francesco Bagnaia finished fourth fastest ahead of Jorge Martin’s Pramac machine, with Brad Binder flying the KTM flag to round out the top six.

On the sister factory Desmosedici, Jack Miller finished seventh ahead of FP1 leader Alex Rins on his Suzuki, with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco’s second Pramac bike rounding out the top 10.

Franco Morbidelli didn’t improve on his FP1 time, but he still finished 11th ahead of Pol Espargaro, while VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini were relegated to 14th and 16th, respectively, despite the former leading the race early on.

Joan Mir’s previous problems on the other Suzuki appear to be persistent, with the 2020 MotoGP world champion barely ahead of LCR Honda’s Alex Marquez and KTM’s Miguel Oliveira in 17th place.

Bradl had been pursuing Aleix Espargaro’s pacesetting Aprilia when he crashed his Honda. He made it through the session and finished 23rd, ahead of Tech3 KTM teammates Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner.

CATALAN MOTOGP FREE PRACTICE 2 RESULTS

Pos	Name	Team	Bike	Gap Next	Gap Leader	Best Time
1	Aleix Espargaró	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia			1m39.402s
2	Maverick Viñales	Aprilia Racing	Aprilia	+0.303s	+0.303s	1m39.705s
3	Enea Bastianini	Gresini Racing MotoGP	Ducati	+0.185s	+0.488s	1m39.89s
4	Francesco Bagnaia	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati	+0.06s	+0.548s	1m39.95s
5	Jorge Martin	Pramac Racing	Ducati	+0.039s	+0.587s	1m39.989s
6	Brad Binder	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	+0.094s	+0.681s	1m40.083s
7	Jack Miller	Ducati Lenovo Team	Ducati	+0.012s	+0.693s	1m40.095s
8	Fabio Quartararo	Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	+0.028s	+0.721s	1m40.123s
9	Alex Rins	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	+0.003s	+0.724s	1m40.126s
10	Franco Morbidelli	Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	+0.078s	+0.802s	1m40.204s
11	Pol Espargaró	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	+0.033s	+0.835s	1m40.237s
12	Takaaki Nakagami	LCR Honda IDEMITSU	Honda	+0.019s	+0.854s	1m40.256s
13	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Gresini Racing MotoGP	Ducati	+0.09s	+0.944s	1m40.346s
14	Marco Bezzecchi	Mooney VR46 Racing Team	Ducati	+0.082s	+1.026s	1m40.428s
15	Luca Marini	Mooney VR46 Racing Team	Ducati	+0.02s	+1.046s	1m40.448s
16	Joan Mir	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	+0.202s	+1.248s	1m40.65s
17	Johann Zarco	Pramac Racing	Ducati	+0.102s	+1.35s	1m40.752s
18	Alex Marquez	LCR Honda Castrol	Honda	+0.033s	+1.383s	1m40.785s
19	Miguel Oliveira	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	+0.036s	+1.419s	1m40.821s
20	Darryn Binder	WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team	Yamaha	+0.05s	+1.469s	1m40.871s
21	Andrea Dovizioso	WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team	Yamaha	+0.072s	+1.541s	1m40.943s
22	Michele Pirro	Austrian Junior Cup	Ducati	+0.108s	+1.649s	1m41.051s
23	Stefan Bradl	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	+0.023s	+1.672s	1m41.074s
24	Raul Fernandez	Tech3 KTM Factory Racing	KTM	+1s	+2.672s	1m42.074s
25	Remy Gardner	Tech3 KTM Factory Racing	KTM	+0.212s	+2.884s	1m42.286s