Bagnaia leads Martin, Marquez in second practice

Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia edged MotoGP championship leader Jorge Martin to top the second practice session for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

A late effort of 1m30.286s from Bagnaia on the factory Ducati was good enough to outpace Pramac rival Martin by a shade under two hundreds of a second at Misano, as Marc Marquez took third place on the year-old GP23.

Championship protagonists Martin and Bagnaia traded fastest times in the first quarter of the session, with Martin first to take to the top on a 1m31.325s and Bagnaia responding with a 1m31.129s.

Martin then broke the 1m32s barrier on his next flying lap, only for Bagnaia to fire back with a 1m30.924s to reclaim the top spot.

It took a second run from Martin to finally get the better of Bagnaia, the Spaniard getting down to a 1m30.884s after returning to the track on the same tyres.

A final flurry of laps followed in the final 15 minutes as all riders fitted a soft rear tyre. Martin lowered his benchmark to 1m30.585s to extend his advantage at the front, but Bagnaia managed to find almost a quarter of a second on him to swing the session back in his favour.

The late 1m30.286s effort from Bagnaia remained unbeaten until the end of the session, partly down to Martin losing his Pramac bike into the long Turn 8 left-hander with under four minutes left on the clock.

Martin had improved to a 1m30.484s before his late tumble, putting him 0.198s down on Bagnaia’s best.

Gresini rider Marc Marquez, who was quickest in FP1, finished another tenth adrift in third place after posting a time of 1m30.585s on the best of the GP23 bikes.

Enea Bastianini was in the drop zone with the final 10 minutes to run, but the factory Ducati rider improved to a 1m31.0607s to take fourth ahead of an impressive Fabio Quartararo on the factory Yamaha.

Quartararo was the only representative for Yamaha in afternoon practice, with team-mate Alex Rins sitting out the session due to a high fever.

Franco Morbidelli took sixth place on the Pramac Ducati, while Marco Bezzecchi was seventh on the leading VR46 bike.

Both factory Aprilia riders earned an automated spot into Q2, with Maverick Vinales setting the eight-fastest time and team-mate Aleix Espargaro creeping up to 10th with a minute left in the session.

Tech3 KTM’s Pedro Acosta was the only rider from the KTM contingent inside the top 10 as he set split to two factory…