Martin throws down the gauntlet in Italy

Jorge Martin (Del Conca Gresini Moto3) was the fastest man in this morning’s FP1 session, and followed it up in FP2 by going 0.339 quicker than anyone else at the Gran Premio d’Italia Oakley to end Friday on top. Aron Canet (Estrella Galicia) was second fastest overall on Friday, cementing his position from the morning’s session to remain his title rival’s closest challenger. Rounding out the top three was SIC58 Squadra Corse rider Tatsuki Suzuki, impressively improving from P14 in FP1 for the home team.

With track temperatures almost doubling in the afternoon, the lightweight class times tumbled. Philipp Oettl (Sudmetal Schedl GP Racing) was fourth quickest overall on Friday, dropping one position from his FP1 efforts despite going nine tenths quicker, and Kaito Toba (Honda Team Asia) leaped up the timesheets in the second session of the day, finishing fifth quickest after being down in P18 in the morning.

Home hero Marco Bezzecchi (Redox PrustelGP) was sixth quickest on the opening day at his home Grand Prix, his 1:57.788 was enough to move him up one position from FP1. Teammate Jakub Kornfeil was seventh quickest, the Czech rider cementing his top ten pace after finishing P10 this morning, his time 1.5 seconds quicker this afternoon. John McPhee (CIP – Green Power) also went over a second quicker than he did in FP1 to end the day eighth quickest, with Fabio Di Giannantonio (Del Conca Gresini Moto3) and Le Mans winner Albert Arenas (Angel Nieto Team Moto3) rounding out the top ten – the latter coming from P20 in this morning’s session.

Niccolo Antonelli (SIC58 Squadra Corse) was one high-profile crasher who highsided at Turn 7 during the session. The Italian was taken to the Medical Centre for a check-up, but was thankfully declared fit.

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The lightweight class will be back out on track on Saturday morning for FP3, 09:00 local time.