MOTO2 : Pol Espargaro takes over day 2 at Valencia

On the second day of Moto2 testing at Valencia, lap times began to drop and the become tighter, with four riders making it under the 1.36 barrier and eleven within a second from the top rider.

Taking over from Nicol Terol, pre-season title favourite Pol Espargaro topped the timesheets with a best lap of 1’35″191 in the final hour of the session and leaving yesterday’s leader Nicol Terol, in second and little more than two tenths adrift, followed by Thomas Luthi who made a big jump forward, shaving off almost seven tenths of second from day 1.

Julian Simon continues to impress with his Italtrans Racing Team Kalex machine as he finished fourth, while Pons rider Tito Rabat jumped a few spots to take fifth and he was just 0.005s faster than Johann Zarco.

Takaaki Nakagami took 7th with the other Italtrans Racing Team machine, and Scott Redding was 8th ahead of Simone Corsi - the best of the la Speed Up riders, while Jordi Torres closed out the day in 10th.

Like yesterday several riders crashed, Moto2 rookie Sandro Cortese, JiR Moto2’s Mike di Meglio, Louis Rossi, Blusens Avintia’s Kyle Smith and QMMF Racing Team’s Rafid Topan Sucipto - his third in two days. Desguaces La Torre SAG’s Marcel Schrötter will miss the rest of the test, as his bike cannot be repaired in time from a crash yesterday. According to the MotoGP website ‘none of the riders were seriously hurt.’

Tomorrow will be the third and final day of testing for the middle class.

Moto2 Valencia test results day 2:

01- Pol Espargaro – Tuenti HP 40 1’35.520
02- Nico Terol – MAPFRE Aspar Team Moto2 + 0.213
03- Thomas Luthi – Interwetten Paddock + 0.427
04- Julian Simon – Italtrans Racing Team + 0.473
05- Tito Rabat – Tuenti HP 40 + 0.503
06- Johann Zarco – CAME Iodaracing Project + 0.508
07- Takaaki Nakagami – Italtrans Racing Team + 0.531
08- Scott Redding – Marc VDS Racing Team + 0.582
09- Simone Corsi – NGM Mobile Racing + 0.672
10- Jordi Torres – MAPFRE Aspar Team Moto2 + 0.770

from TWOWHEELSBLOG