Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo claim top places in Jerez FP2

The 2020 MotoGP World Championship finally got underway today for PETRONAS Yamaha SRT riders Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo, who finished FP2 first and second respectively at Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto, Spain. The pair claimed 12th and 15th in the combined times.

Morbidelli, who is going into this first MotoGP racing weekend of the year having signed for the team for two more years, ended the afternoon session at the top of the time sheets with a 1min 38.125secs lap. It was a strong performance by the Italian and bodes well for Sunday’s race, with the high track temperatures of the afternoon indicative of what the riders will have to face. Franco’s best time in FP1 of 1min 37.982secs placed him 12th in the combined standings from the two sessions.

Meanwhile team-mate Quartararo was the only rider to go quicker in the afternoon session, where track temperatures reached 56C, to finish second with a lap time of 1min 38.152secs. The Frenchman used the day to continue improving the set up of his Yamaha YZR-M1 and will use tomorrow’s two free practice sessions to improve one-lap pace. The morning’s fastest time of 1min 38.245secs put Quartararo 17th, but the afternoon lap moved him up to 15th in the combined times.

Tomorrow’s track action will see the two MotoGP riders complete two free practice sessions, the first of which to be held at 9.55am local time (3.55pm MYT), before the first qualifying session of 2020 for the pair gets underway at 2.10pm local time (8.10pm MYT).

Franco Morbidelli
12th (1’37.982)

It was a really good day for us; we’ve been consistent this morning and we’ve been fast this afternoon. I’m really happy with the overall performance that we have demonstrated today. We need to put everything together and our priority tomorrow is to get directly into Q2, before we think about which tyres to use for the race. Last year was a good race for us here and with the performance we’ve had so far I’m confident ahead of qualifying tomorrow.

Fabio Quartararo
15th (1’38.152)

I struggled in the morning practice, but in the afternoon we had a good setting on the bike and it felt great. The pace was good in the heat, which is really good as the race will be at more or less at the same time as we had FP2 today. We’ve come here with a new bike compared to last year, no running since pre-season testing and that’s why I struggled a lot this morning. We need to go step by step in making improvements, but I’m really looking forward to tomorrow where we can work on our time attack pace ahead of qualifying and I’m feeling confident.