Czech Republic Grand Prix Brno MotoGP FP2: Quartararo outclasses, Rossi breaks!

Even if everyone suspects that with 58 points ahead Marc Márquez will not be on the street, very smart is he who knows today who will make us vibrate during this 2nd part of the 2019 MotoGP season, even if Fabio Quartararo showed himself valiant in this area…

After the summer break, the return to school takes place under a gray sky on the attractive but bumpy Brno circuit, except for Jorge Lorenzo who is focusing on a return to Silverstone.

It is temporarily replaced by Stefan bradl within the Repsol Honda team while, at Suzuki, Sylvain Guintoli made his second wildcard of the year in Moravia, after that of Barcelona: after a private test in Motegi and a superb performance during the first hour of the Suzuka 2 Hours, the French driver is currently spending more time on his butt a motorbike only on his sofa… and he confirmed his level this morning!

Last year, Brno was the occasion for a great duel between the 2 official Ducatis and the Honda of Marc Marquez, just in front of the Yamaha of Valentino Rossi.

A bit of a strange session this morning where relatively few drivers fitted a new rear tire to tease the time, while rain is expected for tomorrow. We can therefore think that it will attack hard this afternoon…

With the sky still cloudy and temperatures of 23° in the air and 29° on the track, here are the references available before this 2-minute FP45 MotoGP:

Brno MotoGP™	2018	2019
FP1	1'56.647 Johann Zarco (See here)	1'56.919 Andrea Dovizioso (See here)
FP2	1'55.976 Dani Pedrosa (See here)	1'55.802 Fabio Quartararo
FP3	1'55.175 Valentino Rossi (See here)
FP4	1'56.149 Marc Márquez (See here)
Q1	1'55.538 Maverick Viñales (See here)
Q2	1'54.689 Andrea Dovizioso (See here)
warm up	1'56.177 Andrea Dovizioso (See here)
Course	Dovizioso, Lorenzo, Marquez (See here)
All time lap record	1'54.596 Marc Márquez (2016)

When the red lights go out, Alex Rins is the quickest to hit the trail.

Most riders chose the hard rear tire, even though all options are in action:

 

Alex Rins, who has large fins on the fork crown of his Suzuki, recorded the first provisional reference in 1'56.896 then 1'56.674 whileAleix Espargaro minor fall at turn 13, the same as Francis Bagnaia this morning.

We take note that fabio quartararo et John Zarco are running faster than this morning, which allows the first city to provisionally pre-qualify in 4th position for Q2.

Andrea Dovizioso et Danilo Petrucci also feature a new fairing with more prominent fork crown fins.

At the end of the first run, Cal Crutchlow joins the top 10 composed of Álex Rins, Marc Márquez, Jack Miller, Andrea Dovizioso, Fabio Quartararo, Cal Crutchlow, Takaaki Nakagami, Johann Zarco, Aleix Espargaró and Stefan Bradl.

Maverick Vinales is then 11th, Franco Morbidelli 12th, Pol Espargaro 15th, Danilo Petrucci 16th and Valentino Rossi 17th at 1,8 seconds.

Maverick Vinales then switches to a soft rear tire and jumps to provisional pole position, in 1'56.084.

However, we continue to work mainly during the 2nd run where the top 10 combined is made up of Maverick Viñales, Álex Rins, Andrea Dovizioso, Marc Márquez, Miguel Oliveira, Jack Miller, Sylvain Guintoli, Valentino Rossi, Fabio Quartararo and Cal Crutchlow, when Valentino Rossi appears to have an engine failure, large blue smoke escaping from its exhaust.

Takaaki Nakagami then achieves the 3rd beat of the session just before Valentino Rossi leaves with his 2nd machine.

1/4 hour before the end of the session, Danilo Petrucci achieves the 8th time of the session and enters the top 10 in the combined, ejecting fabio quartararo of the Top 10 while Franco Morbidelli obtained 5th place.

Jack Miller, very present this morning, then recorded the 2nd best time of the afternoon, Joan Mir the 7th.

The final rush begins with Sylvain Guintoli who achieves the 8th time equipped with a soft rear tire.

Marc Márquez did the same and took provisional pole in 1'55.825. 5 minutes from the checkered flag, all the drivers are now on soft tires at the rear, and Andrea Dovizioso is positioned 2nd, 2/10 behind the Honda driver.

Miguel Oliveira confirms its performance this morning while Takaaki Nakagami makes a mistake.

2 minutes from the end of the session, Fabio Quartararo achieves the best time of the day in 1'55.802.

In extremis, Valentino Rossi moves from 18th place to 8th.

Ranking Czech Republic Grand Prix in Brno FP2:

Credit classification and photos: MotoGP.com