Thick gray clouds enveloped the sky over Le Mans before the second practice session on Friday and prompted a rush out of the pit lane from the field at the beginning of FP2 to do a few banker laps, just in case it rained.
Aleix Espargaro set the early pace with 1: 35.466 minutes on his Aprilia in a session in which he crashed twice in the tricky Dunlop chicane at Turn 3.
Quartararo replaced Espargaro seconds later with 1: 34.221 minutes before Alex Rins moved the goal posts on his Suzuki with 1: 33.478 minutes.
That wouldn’t last long, however, as Quartararo fired on a series of session top laps that culminated in a minute of 1: 32.689 just under 10 minutes in FP2.
Quartararo put 0.591 seconds between himself and the rest of the field a few minutes later as he led his factory Yamaha to 1: 32.120 minutes.
His session was briefly interrupted 21 minutes before the end by a fall in the Dunlop chicane, with Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia also sliding into this gravel trap at the beginning of the session.
Quartararo’s lead at the front of the field was slightly curtailed by his Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales, whose 1: 32.548 minutes, just over 10 minutes from the checkered flag, put him 0.428 seconds behind the French.
Honda’s Pol Espargaro gave Quartararo’s lap his greatest challenge with just under five minutes to go when he advanced to second place with 1: 32.137 minutes.
A 1: 31.842 in the final two minutes seemed to cement Quartararo’s top spot in FP2, but Zarco found 0.095 seconds at the end of the session to steal the day from the Yamaha rider.
Vinales followed the home heroes in third place, with Pol Espargaro provisionally securing direct passage in Q2 for the first time since the Qatar GP in March.
Franco Morbidelli completed the top 5 on his two-year-old Petronas SRT Yamaha, with Miguel Oliveira in sixth place in front of the Spanish GP winner Jack Miller – who fell off his Ducati in the middle of the Musee bend – signaled a turn in KTM form.
Marc Marquez ensured that both factory team Hondas were eighth in the top 10 at the end of Friday’s Le Mans race, with Valentino Rossi on his SRT Yamaha and LCRs Takaaki Nakagami completing the top 10.
Late on the left, Suzuki duo Alex Rins and Joan Mir both fell outside the top 10 in 11th and 13th place respectively, while championship leader Bagnaia only finished 12th on his Ducati.
Should FP3 prove too wet on Saturday morning to improve the lap time, the Suzukis and Bagnaia will be accompanied by a frustrated Aleix Espargaro after he left 14th place in front of Tech3 rider Iker Lecuona after his two falls.
Brad Binder couldn’t keep up with KTM teammate Oliveira’s pace in FP2 in 16th place, ahead of Alex Marquez (LCR) and Jorge Martin’s deputy Tito Rabat.
Last year’s French GP winner Danilo Petrucci was last 2.7 seconds behind the pace on his Tech3 KTM, following a trio of rookies in Avintia’s Luca Marini, Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori and Enea Bastianini’s other Avintia Ducati.