Vinales tops second practice, Bagnaia in Q1 for finale

With 21 points splitting factory Ducati rider Bagnaia and Pramac’s Martin coming into this weekend’s finale, Friday’s second practice was a crucial session.

Martin won this particular battle by ending up second behind Aprilia’s Vinales, who posted a new lap record of 1m29.142s to end the day fastest of all.

Bagnaia could only manage 15th after his final lap was scuppered by yellow flags for a crash, though he impeded himself further by getting involved in gamesmanship with title rival Martin.

The session began with Gresini’s Fabio Di Giannantonio setting the early pace with a 1m30.076s on his year-old Ducati as he looks to secure his MotoGP future for 2024 with VR46 Ducati.

Then followed three crashes in quick succession, with Aleix Espargaro, Marco Bezzecchi and Augusto Fernandez coming off at Turns 1, 8 and 14 respectively.

Moments later, LCR Honda’s Alex Rins would add himself to the crash heap at Turn 1 while Di Giannantonio improved to a 1m29.924s.

Di Giannantonio would eke out more time on his Gresini Ducati to a 1m29.805s with just under 38 minutes of the hour-long session to go.

Honda’s Marc Marquez then took over 10 minutes later with a 1m29.465s as he went early onto a fresh soft rear tyre for a time attack.

Martin employed the same tactic, posting a 1m29.464s a few minutes later, before Vinales shot to the top of the order with a 1m29.392s to break Jorge Lorenzo’s lap record from 2016.

With just under 15 minutes to go, the session was briefly red-flagged after Jack Miller crashed his KTM heavily going through Turn 3 and left a bit of debris on the racing line.

The stoppage was only brief, with Martin following Bagnaia out of the pitlane when the session restarted.

Both were on good laps when Bagnaia bailed into pitlane with just under 10 minutes to go, Martin in tow.

When they left pitlane again, Martin exited his box very close to Ducati boss Davide Tardozzi as he looked to hook onto the back of Bagnaia.

There was almost a collision between the pair when Bagnaia braked for Turn 1 at pit-exit, with Martin narrowly avoiding running into the back of the factory team Ducati.

Bagnaia was able to put Gresini’s Alex Marquez between himself and Martin, but when the former ran off at Turn 8 his title rival followed him.

And when Pol Espargaro crashed at Turn 3 at the end of the session, Bagnaia had to abort his final…