Marquez gets the better of Miller again during COTA FP2

After topping a predominantly wet FP1, Marc Marquez looked equally as strong during this afternoon’s dry MotoGP FP2 at COTA to end up quickest. 

With more uncertain weather scheduled for Saturday, FP2 could be one of the more important sessions this weekend, which is why multiple time attacks were attempted. 

At the beginning of the session it was Marquez and Miller who led the way by a considerable margin, however, the pace from Marquez was too hot to handle even for the Australian, who was on the podium the last time MotoGP raced at COTA (2019).

Marquez’ best time during the opening stint put him five tenths ahead of the Ducati rider, although that gap looked set to be a full second two laps later, but Marquez chose to enter pit lane and therefore abort his effort. 

Notorious for his slow starts on a Friday, Brad Binder had no such problems in Austin as he sat third overall with more than half the session gone. 

The South African was eventually moved down to fourth (finished 11th in the end) as Takaaki Nakagami began to find pace. 

Miguel Oliveira then put his KTM RC16 into P3, while Marquez and Miller remained unchallenged in first and second. 

Miller managed to eventually close the half a second gap to just +0.123s from Marquez, while Pol Espargaro went up to sixth place. 

Iker Lecuona became the first rider to crash in FP2 before Aleix Espargaro and Miguel Oliveira fell within seconds of each other late on. 

When the time attacks began, Bagnaia became the first rider to set a sub 2m 05s lap, however, the winner of the last two races was immediately bettered by Nakagami. 

Rins and Quartararo also went top before Marquez improved upon Quartararo’s time by a further two tenths. 

Marquez could have improved further to set a sub 2m 04s time, but the eight-time world champion made a mistake at turn 12. This allowed Miller to get within +0.015s of top spot on his final flying lap.