Marco Bezzecchi made a brilliant comeback from a collarbone fracture to lead a 1-2-4-5 finish for Aprilia in practice for the MotoGP British Grand Prix.
Having been unsure about his fitness level following a crash at last month’s German Grand Prix and a patchy run of form prior to that, Bezzecchi smashed the circuit record at Silverstone by almost a second on Friday.
Trackhouse’s Ai Ogura had appeared set to end the day in front after setting the first sub-1m57s lap at Silverstone, but first team-mate Raul Fernandez and then factory rider Bezzecchi were able to go faster in the dying minutes of the session.
Fabio di Giannantonio jumped to third on the VR46 Ducati ahead of championship leader Jorge Martin, with Ogura demoted to fifth amid the late flurry of improvements.
When the hour-long session got underway, Martin was immediately up to pace, lowering Alex Marquez’s benchmark from FP1 with a time of 1m58.692s. Bezzecchi moved up to second shortly afterwards, establishing an early 1-2 for Aprilia behind his team-mate.
But before the first 10 minutes were up, the younger Marquez went even quicker on his Gresini Ducati, finding just under a tenth of a second over his countryman. Bezzecchi tried to respond on his next flying lap, but fell 0.032s short of disposing the Spaniard.
Fabio Di Giannantonio, VR46 Racing Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / Getty Images
Alex Marquez remained at the top of the timesheets until just before the halfway mark of the session, when Trackhouse riders asserted their position at the front, with Fernandez and then Ogura going fastest in the field.
In the final 15 minutes, the entire field switched to fresh soft tyres, with Pedro Acosta, Alex Marquez and Marc Marquez all enjoying brief stints at the top spot of the timesheets.
However, it didn’t take long for Ogura to reclaim the advantage, the Japanese rider setting a blistering time of 1m56.810s just seconds later. It appeared Ogura had done enough to end the day on top, but Fernandez managed to pull something special out of the bag, demoting his team-mate with just a minute left in the session.
But there was one more surprise left in store, as Bezzecchi posted a 1m56.280s on his final flying lap to snatch the top spot from the Trackhouse rider.
Di Giannantonio denied Aprilia 1-2-3 lockout with third, while Martin jumped from 17th to fourth with two rapid lap times. Ogura was left in fifth place at the end of the session, just ahead of the factory Ducati of Marc Marquez.
Alex Marquez wound up seventh, while Joan Mir finished a solid eighth for Honda. The top 10 was rounded out by Pramac’s Jack Miller and KTM rider Pedro Acosta, the latter crashing at Brooklands with five minutes remaining.
Enea Bastianini (Tech3) and Luca Marini (Honda) just missed out on a direct entry into Q2, while Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) will also be forced into the first part of qualifying after crashing late on and finishing 13th.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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