Talmacsi tops Portugal times on opening day

The entire Moto2 field was able to take to the track at Estoril on Friday afternoon as vastly improved conditions in comparison to the morning greeted them for FP2 at the bwin Grande Premio de Portugal.

Fimmco Speed Up rider Gabor Talmacsi was the rider who led the way on the first day as he set a best time of 1’50.916 to top the timesheet across both sessions, and the Hungarian was the only rider under 1’51”. Julián Simón (Mapfre Aspar), who did not ride in the morning, was second at 0.388s off Talmacsi, with World Champion Toni Elías (Gresini Racing) showing no signs of any hangover from a fall in the morning session to set the third best time as the track provided a much better surface than the rain-drenched one encountered only hours before.

Kenan Sofuoglu, who is riding for the Technomag-CIP team in the final two rounds, was fourth quickest at just over a second off the lead time, as Raffaele De Rosa (Tech 3 Racing) and Alex de Angelis (JiR Moto2) rounded out the top six. There was still a cautious approach being adopted by the majority of the riders as a gap of over 3.6s separated the top ten, but the Moto2 class were afforded the chance to roll out on slick tyre compounds during the session.

Meanwhile Andrea Iannone (Fimmco Speed Up), who is closely matched with Simón in the fight for runner-up spot in the Championship, could only set the 34th fastest time in the session.