Silverstone MotoGP: Marc Marquez fastest in practice two

After his commanding morning performance, Marquez quickly brushed aside early practice two pacesetter Andrea Dovizioso and then gave himself a one-second margin over the pack with a 2m02.126s halfway through the session.

The Honda rider might have improved on that with his very last lap, but traffic at Woodcote spoilt it.
Stefan Bradl ended up as Marquez's closest rival on the LCR Honda, half a second down.

Dovizioso was third for Ducati, claiming the place from top Briton Bradley Smith with his last lap.

There was plenty of encouragement for the home crowd, with Smith keeping his Tech 3 Yamaha in the top three for a long spell, and countryman Scott Redding putting Gresini's production Honda sixth.

Yonny Hernandez also starred with fifth place on Pramac's older-spec Ducati, two places ahead of team-mate Andrea Iannone's upgraded bike.

As the underdogs and home riders forced their way into the top 10, Marquez's regular challengers continued to struggle as they did in the first session.

Dani Pedrosa was only ninth on the second works Honda, this time 1.284s slower than Marquez, while neither factory Yamaha made the top 10 - with Jorge Lorenzo 11th and Valentino Rossi 13th.

Lorenzo firmly blamed Bridgestone's tyre choice for the Silverstone event, predicting "a hard weekend for the Yamaha riders".

MotoGP's Friday running passed relatively incident-free. Bradl, Pedrosa and Hiroshi Aoyama all had minor trips off the road, and Leon Camier's Aspar Honda parked out on track late on.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 2m02.126s
 2.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             2m02.635s  +0.509s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                2m03.011s  +0.885s
 4.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha         2m03.070s  +0.944s
 5.  Yonny Hernandez   Pramac Ducati         2m03.327s  +1.201s
 6.  Scott Redding     Gresini Honda         2m03.333s  +1.207s
 7.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati         2m03.353s  +1.227s
 8.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         2m03.391s  +1.265s
 9.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 2m03.410s  +1.284s
10.  Aleix Espargaro   Forward Yamaha        2m03.468s  +1.342s
11.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                2m03.500s  +1.374s
12.  Pol Espargaro     Tech 3 Yamaha         2m03.542s  +1.416s
13.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                2m03.952s  +1.826s
14.  Cal Crutchlow     Ducati                2m04.057s  +1.931s
15.  Alex de Angelis   Forward Yamaha        2m04.411s  +2.285s
16.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Aspar Honda           2m04.762s  +2.636s
17.  Leon Camier       Aspar Honda           2m04.928s  +2.802s
18.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Honda         2m05.002s  +2.876s
19.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda Aprilia          2m05.827s  +3.701s
20.  Michael Laverty   PBM-Aprilia           2m06.335s  +4.209s
21.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m06.369s  +4.243s
22.  Broc Parkes       PBM-Aprilia           2m07.855s  +5.729s
23.  Mike di Meglio    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m08.397s  +6.271s