Luthi Tops Friday Moto2 Practice

Nov 6, 2015
2 min read

Thomas Luthi was fastest on the final Friday of the Moto2 season at Valencia.

The Swiss rider set a time of 1m35.560s to continue the strong pace he showed in Sepang where he claimed pole position and finished second to the 2015 Champion Johann Zarco. However, Luthi did suffer a crash after the second practice had finished at turn 11 but will be confident going into qualifying.

Sam Lowes had initially set the leading time in the first practice session but had to settle for second at the end of the day just over two tenths adrift of Luthi. Impressively, outgoing Moto2 Champion Tito Rabat returned to the action this weekend after missing the last three races and finished third on the combined practice timesheets. Rabat will move to MotoGP in 2016 and will be aiming to record a win at his final Moto2 race.

Alex Rins was fourth quickest despite a crash at turn 8 in FP2 and was just ahead of Jonas Folger. Luis Salom followed up his recent strong form to end the day sixth quickest overall and only marginally ahead of Julian Simon by eight-thousandths of a second. Takaaki Nakagami, Simone Corsi and Sandro Cortese completed the top ten.

2015 Champion Johann Zarco as only twelth quickest but the leading 14 riders were within nine tenths of a second of Thomas Luthi. Meanwhile, Dominique Aegerter returned to the field after his injuries sustained at Aragon which forced him to miss the last three races. Aegerter managed 28th place and only 0.001s behind his teammate Robin Mulhauser, but Aegerter reported pain after FP2 and withdrew from the remainder of the weekend. Australian Josh Hook will substitute once again for Aegerter for the season finale.

Combined Moto2 Friday Practice Top 10:

1st - Thomas LUTHI, 1m35.560s

2nd - Sam LOWES, 1m35.761s

3rd - Tito RABAT, 1m35.834s

4th - Alex RINS, 1m35.994s

5th - Jonas FOLGER, 1m36.049s

6th - Luis SALOM, 1m36.216s

7th - Julian SIMON, 1m36.224s

8th - Takaaki NAKAGAMI, 1m36.273s

9th - Simone CORSI, 1m36.283s

10th - Sandro CORTESE, 1m36.341s

Full combined times available here.