Rabat dominates FP2

Aug 7, 2015
2 min read

Defending champion Tito Rabat showed his talent once more as he took control of a rather tame Moto2 second practice session.

Rabat was the only man to dip below 1m37s in the session and ended a relatively large 0.328s clear of second placed Sam Lowes. The reigning Moto2 champion set a series of consistently fast laps in the middle part of the session as he continuously improved on his time and edged nearer to the fastest FP1 time set by Alex Rins before eventually beating it by some considerable margin. A switch to a new set of tyres with less than 20 minutes remaining helped reduce the lap time further and put Rabat within one tenth of a second of the outright lap record set by Mika Kallio on pole position last year.

Behind Rabat, Sam Lowes concluded the session in second place ahead of Takaaki Nakagami and FP1 pacesetter Alex Rins. There were hardly any incidents throughout FP2 nor were there any significant improvements in the final 10 minutes of the session which contrasts the Moto3 and MotoGP action earlier in the afternoon despite conditions being almost ideal.

Current championship leader Johann Zarco showed reasonable pace but nothing to trouble rival Rabat and wound up a respectable 5th place. There were some impressive showings from Malaysian rider Hafizh Syahrin who for most of the session sat in a comfortable top 10 position until he slowly dropped to 10th by the end of FP2. Debutant Xavi Vierge finished in 27th place at the end of his first day in Moto2 having replaced Ricky Cardus for the remainder of the season.

FP3 will be crucial for the field to find lost time to Rabat else the Spaniard looks set to take his first pole position since round 4 at Jerez on 3rd May. The session gets underway at 10:55 local time (14:55 UK time).

Moto2 FP2 Top 10:

1st Tito Rabat, EG 0,0 Marc VDS, 1:36.967

2nd Sam Lowes, Speed Up Racing, 1:37.295

3rd Takaaki Nakagami, IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia, 1:37.406

4th Alex Rins, Paginas Amarillas HP40, 1:37.446

5th Johann Zarco, Ajo Motorsport, 1:37.448

6th Mika Kallio, Italtrans Racing Team, 1:37.520

7th Jonas Folger, AGR Team, 1:37.560

8th Franco Morbidelli, Italtrans Racing Team, 1:37.625

9th Thomas Luthi, Derendinger Racing Interwetten, 1:37.680

10th Hafizh Syahrin, Petronas Raceline Malaysia, 1:37.827

Full Moto2 FP2 results can be found here: