125cc – Shanghai FP2 – Smith takes the lead

Last free practice session available to the 125cc riders in Shanghai, and a revised and corrected ranking compared to what we saw yesterday. The link between the two days is Bradley Smith, always at the top, author of the best time in 2'12"583, naturally at the handlebars of the Aprilia RSA 125 of the Polaris World team. The Oxford rider set a particularly competitive and significant time reference, the result of ideal weather conditions (heat and threat of rain temporarily averted) and a particular predilection towards the Great Wall track: last year, with the Honda Repsol, he was protagonist of a good comeback, only failing to fight for a podium finish at the end (which surprisingly went to his then teammate Esteve Rabat). The product of the MotoGP Academy thus booked the afternoon pole, preceding a Derbi-branded trio, all riding the brand new RSAs: Mike Di Meglio, Ajo Motorsport standard bearer, and the two officials Joan Olive and Pol Espargaro, brought into the race by Daniel Amatriain's structure, worried about the physical condition of his protégé Jorge Lorenzo in MotoGP.

Quartet enclosed in just over 4 tenths, the others are further behind: Sergio Gadea is fifth at 758 thousandths, followed by Terol and Talmacsi at 9 tenths. Besides the second, the disadvantage of Simone Corsi, eighth and first of the Italians who also count Stefano Bianco and Andrea Iannone well placed, in 12th and 14th position respectively. We find the provisional poleman from Shanghai, Stefan Bradl, in 11th place, even 1 seconds from the top: yesterday he was sure of being able to confirm himself on pole, the result of an Aprilia RSA developed by the Kiefer team.

We'll see in the afternoon, when we hope for a rise in the KTMs if only to break up the "Piaggio Cup", with 16 Aprilia/Derbi branded bikes in the top 16 positions. The first of the Matthigofen riders is Pablo Nieto, just ahead of his KTM Onde 2000 teammate, Raffaele De Rosa. Tomoyoshi Koyama did badly, 20th, with Marquez 22nd and our Lorenzo Zanetti even 28th, preceding the returning (but still battered) Randy Krummenacher as well as Tito Rabat in obvious difficulty (as mentioned, he finished third here last year). To close the list of Italians, we note Roberto Lacalendola from Turin, Aprilia Kit of Massimo Matteoni's team, only 31st, ahead of the surviving Honda of Louis Rossi and Efren Vazquez, protagonist of the CEV 125 with the Blusens team. In the afternoon second qualifications, in our peninsula it will be 7am (live television on Italia 10 and Eurosport)

Alessio Piana