Suzuki’s Joan Mir set the early pace in FP2 with a 1’41.495, while LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami was ahead of him with a 1’40.985 just over six minutes into the session.
Moments later, Nakagami’s teammate Alex Marquez moved to the top of the leaderboard with a 1’40.862, taking him to ninth on the combined times, still led by FP1 pacesetter Quartararo.
Just like in FP1, both Quartararo and Bagnaia traded best laps of the session, with Bagnaia moving to the top of the standings with a 1m40.413s after just under 10 minutes of the session had elapsed.
Six minutes later, Quartararo eclipsed his Ducati rival with a 1’40.355, which the Yamaha rider improved to 1’40.304 15 minutes later.
Finally, about a minute later, Bagnaia tumbled Quartararo’s FP1 time to take the overall lead with a time of 1’40.007s.
In the closing moments, a late barrage of fast laps set the timing screens ablaze and Mir returned to the top of the stack with a 1’39.680.
This was soon surpassed by Ducati’s Jack Miller, who shot in 1m39.611s – only to finish fastest on Friday when Quartararo crossed the checkered flag in 1m39.390s.
However, Quartararo’s day nearly ended in disaster as he had a moment at Turn 13 but managed to just stay in the lead on his Yamaha.
Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
A final performance of 1m39.552s put Bagnaia in second to again shadow Quartararo while Miller again rounded out the top three.
I ended up fourth fastest ahead of Honda’s Pol Espargaro and Johann Zarco’s Pramac Ducati.
Alex Marquez continued his early pace in FP2 to finish Friday strong in seventh ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro, Nakagami on sister LCR Honda and second on Alex Rins’ Suzukis.
Jorge Martin was in 11th place on the drops of the top 10, 0.003s behind Rins, followed by Franco Morbidelli on his Yamaha in 12th place.
Petronas SRT duo Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso finished in the last two places in the order while local hero Miguel Oliveira on the KTM was mysteriously 1.5 seconds down in 19th behind Marc Marquez’s reserve Stefan Bradl on the Honda.