Marquez leads Ogura in Friday practice

All of MotoGP’s current top contenders made it directly into Q2 despite a string of crashes punctuating Friday afternoon’s Practice session for the United States Grand Prix. 

Factory Ducati man Marc Marquez led the way, shrugging off the pain that had come with his tumble during Free Practice 1 in the morning.

The drama began early in the afternoon session, with two of the stars of last week’s Brazilian Grand Prix hitting the deck before registering a full lap. Jorge Martin lost control of his factory Aprilia at Turn 12, while Fabio di Giannantonio dropped his VR46 Ducati at Turn 11.

While Martin was able to get going and resume his work, Di Giannantonio could not restart and did not emerge for some time.

Only a few minutes later, there was another flurry of accidents as riders battled for grip following a spike in temperature since FP1. Franco Morbidelli (VR46) fell exiting Turn 1, while Pedro Acosta (KTM) and Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia) both lost it in quick succession at Turn 18. 

Acosta was also becalmed for a time, but the FP1 pace-setter had already set a good time before his fall, with only Francesco Bagnaia ahead of him after the admittedly measured first round of attempts.

Halfway through the hour, as a couple of riders, including Ogura and team-mate Raul Fernandez, began to push on new tyres and set mildly representative lap times, Alex Marquez repeated Morbidelli’s trick of falling at very low speed in the first corner.

Crashes aside, though, it was a traditional slow-burning Practice session. Di Giannantonio brushed off his early incident and hit the top of the timesheets with 18 minutes to go – but only now was most of the field starting to play the fresh-rubber game. 

Points leader Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) duly set a real benchmark a few minutes later, with a 2m01.267s lap that shot him into a safe spot at the head of the field. With exactly 10 minutes remaining, however, Marquez knocked him off his perch – and before long, Di Giannantonio was out of the top 10 as the timing monitors began to churn like a tumble dryer. 

Just one hot lap and a few seconds later, Di Giannantonio was back on top with a 2m01.114s lap – enough to pass safely into Q2 with the likes of Marquez, Bezzecchi and Acosta. For good measure, though, Marquez punched in the first lap under the 2m01s barrier to set the ultimate pace with a minute remaining. 

Ogura made a late statement by shooting up to second place, though Fernandez was unable to join him inside the top 10.

Alex Marquez recovered to make the cut safely with fifth-fastest time. Martin was comfortably through in sixth ahead of Bagnaia, who thus made Q2 directly for the second straight event.

Honda’s Luca Marini claimed ninth spot, while the last automatic Q2 place went to a surprising contender in the form of Tech3 KTM rider Enea Bastianini. 

Honda’s Joan Mir, Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) and Fernandez were first of the losers as far as the all-important Q2 cut was concerned. They’ll get their second chance in Q1 on Saturday morning. 

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– The Autosport.com Team