Rabat leads the way after Friday Practice

The defending Moto2 champion, Tito Rabat, set the fastest lap in free practice for the Czech GP to edge out Thomas Luthi by 0.097s.

Rabat's time of 2m02.714s was just eight tenths of a second slower than the his record pole position time set last season with the track in perfect weather conditions reaching a sweltering 50 degrees celsius. After the session, Rabat told motogp.com that "the conditions were very difficult today because it was so hot but I don't mind riding in this heat" and was "happy to be fastest [at the end of the day]".

Derendinger Racing Interwetten's Thomas Luthi finished in second place in the combined times ahead of an impressive third place for Simone Corsi just over a tenth slower than Rabat. The Forward Racing team returned to the championship after missing the Indianapolis GP due to financial issues and will be delighted to see a strong start to the weekend by the Italian.

Championship leader Johann Zarco topped the first practice session but could only end the day in fourth overall with Sandro Cortese and Jonas Folger in fifth and sixth respectively. British rider Sam Lowes was running an excellent second place until a crash at turn 11 in the dying moments resulted in him dropping down the order to seventh. However, the top 10 riders were separated by a mere 1 second.

Moto2 FP3 gets underway at 9:55am UK time with live commentary on our Twitter account @ILMMotoGP throughout the rest of the weekend.

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