2013 Le Mans MotoGP FP2 Practice Result: Pedrosa Leads Very Tight Field

Submitted by David Emmett on Fri, 2013-05-17 13:06

Dani Pedrosa has maintained his spot at the top of the timesheets at Le Mans, carefully controlling the second session of free practice for the MotoGP class at the French circuit. The Repsol Honda man took over the top spot with two thirds of the session gone, and kept pushing to cut his lap times and extend his lead.

Teammate Marc Marquez took second spot, just pipping Valentino Rossi and forcing the Italian down into third by a few thousandths of a second. Rossi held off his Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo by three hundredths, finishing ahead of Lorenzo for the first time this year in a session during a race weekend. Stefan Bradl set the fifth fastest time, a tenths slower than Lorenzo, and a couple of tenths ahead of Cal Crutchlow in 6th.

The two Ducatis ended in seventh and eighth, both just over half a second behind Pedrosa, the Ducati looking more competitive here than at any other track so far this year. Alvaro Baustista took 9th spot, and Aleix Espargaro ended the session in 10th and best CRT machine, just over a second slower than Pedrosa.

The times set during this session could prove to be crucial, as the forecast for Saturday is looking very uncertain. If rain does fall, then this session will have determined who goes straight through to QP2, with Bradley Smith and Andrea Iannone once again struggling to make it through at the first attempt. Iannone is in the most trouble, the Italian having crashed heavily during the afternoon session, and banged the arm he was operated on after Jerez.

Results:

Pos	No.	Rider	Bike	Time	Diff	Previous
1	26	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	1'34.035
2	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'34.169	0.134	0.134
3	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'34.173	0.138	0.004
4	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Yamaha	1'34.201	0.166	0.028
5	6	Stefan Bradl	Honda	1'34.299	0.264	0.098
6	35	Cal Crutchlow	Yamaha	1'34.512	0.477	0.213
7	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1'34.578	0.543	0.066
8	69	Nicky Hayden	Ducati	1'34.590	0.555	0.012
9	19	Alvaro Bautista	Honda	1'34.739	0.704	0.149
10	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia ART	1'35.045	1.010	0.306
11	38	Bradley Smith	Yamaha	1'35.362	1.327	0.317
12	29	Andrea Iannone	Ducati	1'35.433	1.398	0.071
13	14	Randy de Puniet	Aprilia ART	1'35.447	1.412	0.014
14	51	Michele Pirro	Ducati	1'35.864	1.829	0.417
15	8	Hector Barbera	FTR Kawasaki	1'35.940	1.905	0.076
16	5	Colin Edwards	FTR Kawasaki	1'36.449	2.414	0.509
17	71	Claudio Corti	FTR Kawasaki	1'36.643	2.608	0.194
18	17	Karel Abraham	Aprilia ART	1'36.759	2.724	0.116
19	9	Danilo Petrucci	Suter BMW	1'36.764	2.729	0.005
20	7	Hiroshi Aoyama	FTR Kawasaki	1'36.821	2.786	0.057
21	68	Yonny Hernandez	Aprilia ART	1'37.104	3.069	0.283
22	67	Bryan Staring	FTR Honda	1'37.878	3.843	0.774
23	70	Michael Laverty	PBM	1'38.023	3.988	0.145
24	52	Lukas Pesek	Suter BMW	1'38.818	4.783	0.795