It was a magnificent sun which welcomed the Moto2 and Moto3 competitors this morning for this second day of tests in Jerez and thus augured an excellent day to come...
However, with temperatures of 8° in the air and 12° on the track at 10 a.m., caution was required and the Moto3 riders wisely waited in their box for everything to warm up a little, after the opening of the track.
Reckless, Philipp Oëttl (KTM, Südmetall Schedl GP Racing) did a few laps but his 1'48.570 remained more than a second from his 1'47.336 from yesterday.
We then had to wait until the last half hour to see all the pilots with the exception of Jorge Martin get back on track and tackle the times, an exercise which Marco Bezzecchi (KTM, Prüstel GP) did the best by temporarily being the only one to go under 1'48 thanks to his 1'47.596.
In the last quarter of an hour, Jorge Martin (Honda, Del Conca Gresini) took to the track and only took two laps to keep pace with the Italian before having to face other particularly fast transalpine riders on soft tires, starting with the two drivers from the Leopard Racing team, Lorenzo Dalla Porta et Enea Bastianini, who reached the provisional benchmark in 1'46 on the handlebars of their Honda.
We then witnessed the return of Philipp Oëttl who clocked a very nice 1'46.367, to compare with the absolute record of George Martin achieved last year in 1'46.004.
The last minutes saw Aron Canet (Honda, Estrella Galicia 0,0), Marco Bezzecchi et Dennis Foggia (Sky Racing Team VR46) break into the top 5.
On the French side, that is to say, in the absence of any French driver, within Alain Bronec's CIP-Green Power team, we note the rather promising debut of the rookie Makar Yurchenko who seems to compete relatively easily with his much more experienced teammate, John McPhee.
En Moto2, taking advantage of higher temperatures, the drivers immediately began hostilities and, after only five laps, Alex Marquez (Kalex, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS), in 1'42.727, came within 7 tenths of the official circuit record established last season in 1'42.080.
During this first salvo, Isaac Vinales (Kalex, SAG Team), Lorenzo Baldassarri (Kalex, Pons HP40), Brad Binder (KTM, Red Bull KTM Ajo), Sam Lowes (KTM, Swiss Innovative Investors), Mattia Pasini (KTM, Italtrans Racing Team) and Miguel Oliveira (KTM, Red Bull KTM Ajo) also went below the 1'43 mark.
Two rounds later, Isaac Vinales took command in 1'42. 530 before having to grant it to Francis Bagnaia (Kalex, SKY Racing Team VR46) for 3 thousandths of a second.
Then, at 11:47 a.m., the old official record ofAlex Marquez was forgotten under the pressure of the VR46 driver who imposed his domination in 1'42.019: we could then start looking towards the absolute record of 1'41.989 still belonging to the Marc VDS driver...
Halfway through the session, we observed with interest the third position of Remy gardner (Mistral, Tech3 Racing), only 2 tenths from the best time, tied for times with Mattia Pasini (Kalex, Italtrans Racing Team).
Things then stabilized during a second part of the session where the top 4 were not worried, until the last minutes when the attack of Lorenzo Baldassarri forced Alex Marquez to increase the rhythm, thus allowing him to improve his sound by a few hundredths absolute circuit record.
French side, Fabio Quartararo (Speed Up, Beta Tools Speed Up Racing) is always one second off the best time, Jules Danilo (Kalex, SAG Team) at 2,5.
See you this evening for the complete summary of a day that promises to be interesting…
