Jerez MotoGP: Jorge Lorenzo stays on top in practice two

Lorenzo headed Cal Crutchlow as the Yamahas enjoyed a much more competitive time at Jerez than at Austin two weeks ago.

The session's start was delayed due to ongoing power cut problems at Jerez but once it did get underway Lorenzo emerged on top after an early flurry of times.

The morning pacesetter lay down an impressive early benchmark with a 1m39.691s lap to improve immediately on his FP1 time, while Crutchlow dipped into the 1m39s for the first time and then improved to head the chasing pack.

Lorenzo then went even faster, setting a 1m39.562s, but even his first effort would have been good enough for first place.

The early urgency was shortlived and the next 20 minutes featured little improvement, though Danilo Petrucci suffered yet another mechanical failure as his Ioda-Suter's BMW engine let go in spectacular fashion.

Crutchlow was unable to improve on his early 1m39.733s but had looked set to dethrone Lorenzo in the final minutes of the session after going faster for most of the lap, before losing time in the final sector.

Dani Pedrosa headed Honda's charge with the third fastest time, but he was slower than he managed in the morning session - albeit only by a few thousandths of a second.

Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez were two improvers in the final quarter of the session, both going under 1m40s for the first time to end up fourth and fifth quickest, ahead of Alvaro Bautista, one of the few to set rapid times in the middle of the afternoon.

Marquez had a steady start to the weekend but set fastest sector times as the session drew to a close - only to replicate Crutchlow's loss of time in the final sector.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike              Time       Gap
 1.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                 1m39.562s
 2.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha          1m39.733s  + 0.171s
 3.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                  1m39.757s  + 0.195s
 4.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                 1m39.874s  + 0.312s
 5.  Marc Marquez      Honda                  1m39.889s  + 0.327s
 6.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda          1m40.507s  + 0.945s
 7.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati          1m40.574s  + 1.012s
 8.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki   1m40.736s  + 1.174s
 9.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia          1m40.738s  + 1.176s
10.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                 1m40.837s  + 1.275s
11.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                 1m40.884s  + 1.322s
12.  Michele Pirro     Ducati                 1m40.902s  + 1.340s
13.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha          1m40.990s  + 1.428s
14.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda              1m41.053s  + 1.491s
15.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia          1m41.078s  + 1.516s
16.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW         1m41.751s  + 2.189s
17.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki   1m41.774s  + 2.212s
18.  Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki   1m41.790s  + 2.228s
19.  Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki   1m42.058s  + 2.496s
20.  Yonny Hernandez   Paul Bird Aprilia      1m42.603s  + 3.041s
21.  Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda      1m42.606s  + 3.044s
22.  Michael Laverty   Paul Bird PBM-Aprilia  1m42.974s  + 3.412s
23.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Aprilia        1m43.356s  + 3.794s
24.  Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW         1m43.403s  + 3.841s