MISANO ADRIATICO, Italy – Maverick Viñales put his Monster Energy Yamaha bike on the top of the MotoGP practice charts Friday at Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.
Viñales led the way overall and during the second practice with a fast lap of 1:32.775, which was just enough to give him the top spot over Fabio Quartararo, who was fastest in the first practice.
“Honestly, today I tried to keep the good feeling from the test going, because we worked in a really good way,” Viñales said. “For sure it was very difficult because the track was very slippery today, but somehow I was still able to hit the lap times, so I’m quite happy and enthusiastic for that reason. Anyway, there’s still a lot of work to do. For sure we, with two or three riders, are a little bit ahead of the competition, but they will come to our level, so we need to keep working and see what we can improve. The track felt difficult today because it’s very slippery, especially on the initial laps on the tire, but we’ll see. We only tried the medium tire, never the hard or a long run on the softs, so tomorrow we will see more properly.”
Championship leader Marc Marquez was third fastest, .396 seconds off the pace set by Viñales. Valentino Rossi was fourth on the second Monster Energy Yamaha, followed by Franco Morbidelli in fifth to give Yamaha four of the top-five spots in practice.
Pol Espargaro was sixth for Red Bull KTM, followed by the Ducati duo of Michele Pirro and Danilo Petrucci, Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and the Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso.