With team owner and mentor Valentino Rossi in attendance at the Red Bull Ring this weekend, Bezzecchi set a new lap record on the revised Spielberg layout to lead Friday’s second session by 0.044s.
Bezzecchi did stop on track on the run down to Turn 4 at the end of the session having run out of fuel before the chequered flag.
He headed Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales and championship leader Francesco Bagnaia on the factory Ducati, while Fabio Quartararo bagged a place in qualifying Q2 on his factory Yamaha.
The hour-long afternoon session was delayed by 10 minutes due to an incident in the preceding Moto2 FP2 leading to an air fence needing to be replaced.
When action got under way, the track was a hive of activity as rain threatened above the Styrian hills.
Ducati’s Bagnaia set the early pace with a 1m30.511s five minutes in before Vinales took over with a 1m29.618s on a fresh medium rear tyre.
Bezzecchi took his first trip to the top of the order with a 1m29.569s moments later, also on a medium rear, before KTM’s Brad Binder went quicker with a 1m29.559s on a fresh soft tyre.
With just over 10 minutes of the session gone, Bezzecchi found a 1m29.450s, which would stand as the benchmark until Vinales fitted a fresh soft rear tyre 12 minutes later.
The Aprilia rider stormed clear of the pack with a 1m29.075s and would go unchallenged until the final 10 minutes.
Source: Autosport