Marco Bezzecchi dominates chaotic second practice at Sachsenring

Marco Bezzecchi rallied out on top to dominate FP2 and take the lead on Friday at the Sachsenring in a session marred by two red flag interruptions.

The second free practice session of the day, which began ten minutes later than scheduled due to a red flag period in an earlier Moto3 session, was slow to get going as the majority of the field focused on finishing race runs.

Miguel Oliveira managed to lead the times after the initial practice stoppage triggered by Takaaki Nakagami. The LCR Honda rider lost control of his RC213V at the dreadful Turn 11, skidded off into the gravel but thankfully managed to avoid injury. However, a piece of machine debris from his crash remained on the track, resulting to a temporary delay to remove it.

Oliveira subsequently pushed his time to a 1:20.862s to go into third place overall as he sought to secure a berth in Saturday’s pole shootout session, but he was ultimately beaten by Fabio Di Gianantonio whose performance was good enough for second place overall behind FP1 leader Johann Zarco.

Before the final time attacks kicked off in seriousness Jorge Martin would be the first to pass the Frenchman, clocking in at 1:20.461 seconds. However, another brief stoppage came about when Marc Marquez lost his Honda on the approach to Turn 1, sweeping out Zarco.

The Pramac rider was leaving the pits at the time, and thankfully avoided injury like Marquez did despite the contact completely tearing off the front half of his Ducati.

The riders were under pressure to find a better time to guarantee a spot in Q2 with only a few minutes remaining when the green light flashed for the third time in FP2 with Bezzecchi benefiting from a helpful tow from title rival Bagnaia to move ahead of the other riders by just 0.040s with a 1:20.271s.

The result was that Martin finished slightly behind the VR46 rider, while Espargaro’s Aprilia was pushed back to third place, just ahead of Bagnaia and Jack Miller on the KTM.

Fabio Quartararo halted his streak of Q1 appearances by setting the sixth-fastest time for Yamaha, barely 0.352 seconds behind Bezzecchi. Meanwhile, Luca Marini’s sister VR46 Ducati took seventh place, beating off Enea Bastianini’s factory Ducati.

The sister VR46 Ducati entry with Luca Marini took seventh place ahead of Enea Bastianini’s factory Ducati after Fabio Quartararo ended his streak of Q1 appearances by setting the sixth-best time for Yamaha, barely 0.352 seconds behind Bezzecchi.

Alex Marquez managed to make it through into Q2 in ninth after crashing out at Turn 13 right at the finish as Zarco held onto the final direct-to-Q2 ticket despite being unable to complete another lap as a result of his earlier crash.

On the sister factory KTM, Brad Binder just edged Augusto Fernandez and Di Gianantonio, whose hopes of improving were thwarted by an incident at Turn 11. The South African came within a fraction of a second from displacing Zarco.

Marc Marquez, on the other hand, had work to do after being unable to set a time late in the session as a result of his earlier incident.

His earlier run was cut short by a significant incident at Turn 11, which resulted in him signaling uncontrollably at the camera mounted to his Honda, placing him 14th slightly ahead of Oliveira.

2023 GERMAN MOTOGP, SACHSENRING FREE PRACTICE 2 RESULTS