The one-hour afternoon session at Jerez saw little in the way of overall lap time improvements until the closing stages, when FP2 exploded into a frantic time attack.
Espargaro was the best of the bunch with a 1m36.708s from Aprilia team-mate Maverick Vinales, while FP1 pacesetter Dani Pedrosa was third overall.
A disastrous afternoon for last year’s Spanish GP winner Bagnaia, four-time Spanish GP polesitter Quartararo and championship leader Marco Bezzecchi saw all three fail to get into the top 10 and will face a volatile Q1 session on Saturday morning.
At least one of those riders will start both the sprint and the grand prix from the fifth row at best.
After half an hour of running in FP2, only Marc Marquez’s injury stand-in Iker Lecuona had made gains on their FP1 best.
Lecuona remained last on the timesheets and suffered a crash 12 minutes into the hour-long session at the final corner.
This would eventually bring the red flag out 10 minutes later as his Honda had punctured the protective air fence lining the edge of the track at Turn 13.
After a brief pause, the session got back underway with 37 minutes and 41 seconds left on the clock – though it wouldn’t be until the final 13 minutes that lap times started to improve significantly.
Source: Autosport