MotoGP Catalunya: Rossi tops second Barcelona practice
Valentino Rossi topped the second MotoGP practice session at Barcelona, edging out Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo
Lorenzo, who led the way in the first session in the morning, set the pace for the majority of the afternoon.
The Spaniard was able to move to the top of the pile every time he crossed the line on his first run, as he and several others vied for position in the early minutes.
As the session settled down Lorenzo seemed comfortable out front, but he was pushed back to second by Rossi when the Italian switched to a soft rear tyre for his final run.
Lorenzo appeared set to respond as the chequered flag came out by going fastest of anyone through the first sector, but he abandoned that lap and toured back to the pits.
The only other significant improvement in the closing stages came from Cal Crutchlow, who went fifth fastest to push Honda rookie Marc Marquez back to sixth.
Behind the factory Yamahas at the front, Dani Pedrosa was best of the rest for Honda, while Alvaro Bautista capped off a session where he was a regular factor at the front by going fourth quickest.
There were two fallers during the 45 minutes. Stefan Bradl had a low-speed crash at Turn 10 early on, and he was able to get back out in the closing stages only to have a fast final lap ruined by traffic.
Bradley Smith was the other rider to crash. While his shunt was not picked up by TV cameras, the fact that he was limping away from the bike afterwards suggested it was a bigger incident than Bradl's.
Pos Rider Team/Bike Time Gap Laps 1. Valentino Rossi Yamaha 1m42.297s 19 2. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 1m42.346s + 0.049s 18 3. Dani Pedrosa Honda 1m42.557s + 0.260s 17 4. Alvaro Bautista Gresini Honda 1m42.752s + 0.455s 18 5. Cal Crutchlow Tech 3 Yamaha 1m42.776s + 0.479s 19 6. Marc Marquez Honda 1m42.857s + 0.560s 18 7. Nicky Hayden Ducati 1m42.890s + 0.593s 20 8. Andrea Dovizioso Ducati 1m42.988s + 0.691s 16 9. Stefan Bradl LCR Honda 1m43.005s + 0.708s 16 10. Aleix Espargaro Aspar Aprilia 1m43.204s + 0.907s 17 11. Andrea Iannone Pramac Ducati 1m43.272s + 0.975s 18 12. Randy de Puniet Aspar Aprilia 1m43.644s + 1.347s 17 13. Michele Pirro Ducati 1m43.648s + 1.351s 19 14. Bradley Smith Tech 3 Yamaha 1m44.247s + 1.950s 11 15. Hector Barbera Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 1m44.461s + 2.164s 17 16. Colin Edwards Forward FTR-Kawasaki 1m44.586s + 2.289s 17 17. Karel Abraham Cardion Aprilia 1m44.599s + 2.302s 17 18. Danilo Petrucci Ioda-Suter-BMW 1m44.609s + 2.312s 20 19. Michael Laverty PBM-Aprilia 1m45.337s + 3.040s 19 20. Claudio Corti Forward FTR-Kawasaki 1m45.513s + 3.216s 18 21. Hiroshi Aoyama Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 1m45.834s + 3.537s 19 22. Yonny Hernandez PBM Aprilia 1m46.216s + 3.919s 9 23. Bryan Staring Gresini FTR-Honda 1m46.577s + 4.280s 19 24. Lukas Pesek Ioda-Suter-BMW 1m47.239s + 4.942s 17
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