Photography by Gold & Goose
Although Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez dominated the majority of the second free practice session today at the Motorland Aragon circuit in Spain, with three minutes and 30 seconds left in the session Andrea Dovizioso used all of his updated Ducati GP14.2 and his soft option rear tire to snatch the fastest lap of the day away from the 2013 MotoGP World Champion and runaway 2014 championship leader.
Marquez clicked off fast laps throughout the session after finishing third best in the morning practice, the Spaniard bouncing back as expected from his race crash at Misano two weeks ago. With 25 minutes to go, Marquez led the way with a 1:48.346 and he bettered that to a 1:48.328 five minutes later. From there he never improved but it never looked like he would need to.
But Dovizioso put a new soft rear tire in his Ducati and threw down a 1:48.285 to earn the honor of being the fastest of the fast in advance of tomorrow’s qualifying for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Aragon. Although his good lap put him at the top, Dovizioso’s second best lap was a 1:49.028 – .743 of a second slower than his best lap.
Marquez, meanwhile, did seven laps in the 1:48s.
Third place in today’s FP2 went to Marquez’s teammate Dani Pedrosa, the veteran doing his best lap with some five minutes and 30 seconds to go – a 1:48.734.
Andrea Iannone rode his updated Pramac Racing Ducati to the fourth quickest time after leading this morning’s opening session. It took the Italian nearly all of the session to better his morning time, but he did so to jump to fourth overall on the day – .462 of a second off Dovizioso’s best.
The Espargaro brothers were next with Aleix fifth on the NGM Forward Racing Yamaha and Pol sixth on the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha. Both of those Yamaha-mounted men bested the struggling factory Yamahas with Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi struggling to seventh and 10th, respectively, on the opening day. Lorenzo even ended the day with the extreme combination of tire compounds – hard on the rear and soft on the front.
LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl ended up eighth on the day with Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Bradley Smith ninth and the aforementioned Rossi 10th.
Nicky Hayden ended up 18th in his first day back after missing four races with his wrist injury. Hayden is 2.6 seconds behind Dovizioso with a 1:50.890.
Free Practice 2
1. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) 1:48.285
2. Marc Marquez (Honda) 1:48.328
3. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 1:48.734
4. Andrea Iannone (Ducati) 1:48.747
5. Aleix Espargaro (Yamaha) 1:48.938
6. Pol Espargaro (Yamaha) 1:48.966
7. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) 1:48.966
8. Stefan Bradl (Honda) 1:49.002
9. Bradley Smith (Yamaha) 1:49.011
10. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 1:49.312
18. Nicky Hayden (Honda) 1:50.890
