Jorge Martin breaks COTA lap record topping second practice

Championship leader Jorge Martin broke the COTA lap record topping the second practice for the Americas MotoGP ahead of Vinales and Marc Marquez.

Pramac’s Jorge Martin was on another level as he broke the lap record with the fastest time in the second practice session at the Circuit of the Americas, home of this weekend’s Americas MotoGP.

In the one-hour afternoon practice, lap times upped significantly coming from FP1 earlier in the day with Martin breaking last year’s lap record of 2m01.892s set by Francesco Bagnaia. The Spanish rider set an incredible record of 2:01.397 seconds, which at one point put him more than half a second ahead of the field just before the final laps.

Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales replicated his excellent performance from the previous practice session by finishing second, 0.076 seconds behind the leader, while teammate Aleix Espargaro also took home a Q2 spot.

Seven-time COTA race winner Marc Marquez finished third following a late 2m01.806s on his Gresini Ducati, while Bagnaia secured his spot in Q2 in the final moments placing fourth.

Martin set the early pace with a time of 2m4.29s, but Factory Ducati’s Enea Bastianini quickly overtook him with a time of 2m04.208s. Pedro Acosta followed with a time of 2m03.578s on his Tech3 GasGas, but Martin reclaimed the lead with a time of 2m03.036s within the first ten minutes of the session.

Over the next 20 minutes, this would serve as the benchmark until Vinales set a time of  2m02.983s after running his Aprilia with a fresh soft rear tyre. However, Martin was not far behind and with a time of 2m02.888s, he once again took the top spot.

Vinales later overtook Martin with a time of 2m02.394s while VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio took second with a time of 2m02.244s. However, Martin was dominating the times behind the two and with less than 13 minutes to go, he ran past the start/finish line in 2m01.397s, setting a new lap record.

Vinales was the sole rider to challenge this time on his final time attack, although his time of 2m01.473s was 0.076 seconds slower than the leader.

Acosta finished fifth and is currently the only KTM rider to secure a Q2 slot. Meanwhile, his factory teammate Brad Binder is the next-best RC16 in 14th place, 0.585 seconds behind the rookie.

Aleix Espargaro finished sixth on the sister factory team Aprilia, while Franco Morbidelli secured his first appearance in the second round of qualifying with Pramac Ducati. The final slots in the top 10 were taken by Enea Bastianini and VR46 duo Fabio Di Giannantonio, and Marco Bezzecchi.

Home team Trackhouse Racing’s Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez narrowly missed Q2 in their first Americas MotoGP. Yamaha riders finished ahead of both LCR and factory Honda, with the two struggling Japanese marques taking up the final six spots on the session’s timesheets.

Fabio Quartararo was the fastest rider for a Japanese manufacturer, finishing in 17th place on his works Yamaha. Joan Mir finished in 20th following a late-session crash, while LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco was the top HRC representation in 19th place.

2024 Americas MotoGP, COTA Free Practice 2 Results