Miller stays fastest as Marquez destroys his Honda with another fall

While the likes of Jorge Martin and COTA MotoGP race winner Alex Rins found early improvements to begin FP2, Aleix Espargaro instead suffered a crash at turn nine. 

Yellow flags then came out shortly after as Aprilia test rider Lorenzo Savadori, who is replacing the injured Miguel Oliveira at RNF this weekend, went down in sector three. 

• WATCH HERE: Marc Marquez crashes on his comeback in French MotoGP practice
• Honda boss reveals FIM president debate about Marquez: “He could not understand”

There were plenty more crashes that followed as Joan Mir was next to run into trouble as he lost the front-end of his Repsol Honda at turn seven. 

Franco Morbidelli was next to fall from his factory Yamaha machine, before Augusto Fernandez and Alex Marquez suffered separate crashes. 

Lucky to get away without injury, Marquez was seen bouncing through the gravel before getting back to his feet immediately.  

Adding his name to a very unwanted list, Martin then crashed at turn 10 which left his Pramac Ducati in bad shape. 

After his early fall, there were more dramas for Espargaro as the Aprilia rider slowed on the entry to turn one.

As the factory Aprilia rider put his left hand up to warn the oncoming riders, Espargaro was seen looking towards the left side of his motorcycle, however, it was unclear what the issue was. 

Going from bad to worse, Mir made another mistake with just over 20 minutes remaining, however, this time the Spaniard avoided crashing for a second time in this session. 

The 2020 MotoGP champion instead ran through the gravel at turn 11 before re-entering the circuit. 

After nearly coming unstuck at turn seven, Bagnaia’s stand-in teammate Danilo Petrucci did just that as he became the eighth rider to fall in FP2 - same corner as Bagnaia’s error.

Pushing on in a bid to crack the top ten, Quartararo had two big wobbles on the exit of turn three and again on the approach to turn four. 

With the time attacks now fully underway with 15 minutes remaining, Quartararo put his previous scare to one side by going fifth. 

That quickly became sixth though, as Martin went third fastest before Binder shot to the top of the leaderboard. 

Looking for a tow as has been common over the last few seasons, Marquez latched onto the back of Bagnaia to begin their first time attack.

However, the world champion was having none of it as he pitted and made Marquez go for a flying lap on his own.

When Marquez was back behind Bagnaia and Martin for the final stint, the Honda rider did make improvements before a fast crash at turn nine which left his RC213V in a complete mess. 

Meanwhile, Quartararo was pushed out of the top ten while Bagnaia managed to squeeze in thanks to a P9 finish.