Moto2 Italy Mugello FP2: Somkiat Chantra leads a session where it was too hot to work

Jake Dixon was the fastest during the first free practice session of the Italian Grand Prix in the Moto2 category at Mugello, eighth stage of the 2022 World Championship. The GasGas Aspar Team rider achieved the best performance with a time of 1'51.966, ahead of Augusto Fernandez (Red Bull Ajo) by 0.316s and Aron Canet (Pons) by 0.380s.

Fourth time for the 3 Moto2021 champion Pedro Acosta (Red Bull Ajo), followed by Filip Salac (Gresini), Sam Lowes (Marc VDS) and a Niccolo Antonelli resurrected (Mooney VR46 Racing Team), who is in his first season in Moto2, who sets the seventh time 0,689 s from the top.

Antonelli is followed by his teammate and leader of the world ranking Celestine Vietti, Somkiat Chantra (Team Asia) and Alonso Lopez (Speed ​​​​Up) which closes the Top Ten. Excellent result for Mattia Pasini, who left the role of commentator to return to the saddle and who is 11th with the GasGas of Team Aspar less than a second from the top, exactly 0.984s. Pasini on track with #11 preceded byAi Ogura (Team Asia), Joe Roberts (Italtrans), gabriel rodrigo (SAG) and his compatriot Tony Arbolino (Marc VDS).

What will this FP2 have in store for us, which already marks the end of the first day of this Italian Grand Prix at Mugello? Before answering this question, here is the table which summarizes the facts known so far.

Mugello Moto2™	2021	2022
FP1	1'51.746 Joe Roberts	1'51.966 Jake Dixon
FP2	1'51.385 Sam Lowes	1'52.350 Somkiat Chantra
FP3	1'50.616 Raúl Fernández
Q1	1'51.710 Fermín Aldeguer
Q2	1'50.723 Raúl Fernández
Warm up	1'51.152 Raúl Fernández
Course	Gardner, R. Fernandez, Bezzecchi
All time lap record	1'50.616 Raúl Fernández 2021

33° in the air and 53° on the track under a mild sky are the conditions offered to the pilots for the 40 minutes of testing.

The first reference goes to Peter Acosta in 1'52.679.

However, the heat does not allow many people to improve on the performances achieved at the end of the morning of FP1... We are already halfway through the session.

While the drivers remain in the cool of their box waiting for the last moments of a session which started in the last quarter of an hour, Mattia Pasini take full advantage of his invitation...

Acosta leads in general torpor in front of his teammate Augusto Fernandez, Manuel Gonzalez, Chantra et Drive, for the top 5. There are ten minutes left which will be long if no one wakes up from their nap in the box.

The last five minutes make the alarm ring with Chantra which jumped to the top of the timesheet in 1'52.350. Augusto Fernandez follows at only 21 thousandths. There are also other satisfactions…

Under the checkered flag, it's Chantra who keeps the advantage in a session which will have fundamentally changed nothing to the hierarchy drawn up during FP1. It was too hot to work.

FP2 result of the Italian Moto2 Grand Prix at Mugello:

Cumulative ranking FP1/FP2

Credit ranking: MotoGP.com