Suzuki’s Joan Mir set the early pace in FP2 with 1: 41.495 minutes, while LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami was just over six minutes ahead of him with 1: 40.985 minutes.
A short time later, Nakagami’s team-mate Alex Marquez moved to the top of the rankings with 1: 40.862 minutes, bringing him to ninth place in the combined time, which was still led by FP1 pacesetter Quartararo.
Just like in FP1, both Quartararo and Bagnaia swapped the best laps of the session, with Bagnaia climbing to the top of the ranking with a time of 1: 40.413 minutes after just under 10 minutes of the session.
Six minutes later, Quartararo beat his Ducati rival with a 1: 40.355s, which the Yamaha rider improved to 1: 40.304s 15 minutes later.
About a minute later, Bagnaia finally surpassed Quartararo’s FP1 time and took first place in the overall standings with 1: 40.007s.
In the final moments, a late barrage of fast laps set the timing screens on fire, with Mir returning to the top of the stack with a 1: 39.680s.
This was soon surpassed by Ducati’s Jack Miller, who shot in 1: 39.611 minutes – only to finish as the fastest on Friday when Quartararo walked the checkered flag in 1: 39.390.
However, Quartararo’s day almost ended in disaster when he had a moment at Turn 13 but managed to almost stay on his Yamaha.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
A final effort of 1: 39.552 minutes put Bagnaia in second place to again shadow Quartararo while Miller again rounded off the top three.
In the end I was fourth fastest ahead of Honda’s Pol Espargaro and Johann Zarco’s Pramac Ducati.
Alex Marquez continued his early pace in FP2, finishing strong in seventh place on Friday ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro, Nakagami on the sister LCR-run Honda and second on Alex Rins’ Suzuki.
Jorge Martin was in 11th place on the edge of the top 10, 0.003 seconds behind Rins, followed by Franco Morbidelli in 12th place on his Yamaha.
The Petronas SRT duo Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso took the last two places on the ranking list, while home hero Miguel Oliveira on the KTM was astonishing 1.5 seconds behind Marc Marquez’s deputy Stefan Bradl on the Honda.