Marc Marquez headed up the second MotoGP Friday practice session at Misano, as a cavalcade of late-session yellow flags impacted the battle for early Q2 spots.
Marquez had already headed up the field before the beginning of the customary 'qualifying zero' runs, and appeared to make a big step in the third sector - dominated by fast right-handers that include the famous Curvone - to fire in a table-topping 1m30.480s.
Marco Bezzecchi was second on the Aprilia, and did team-mate Jorge Martin a favour by towing him along to eighth place, Martin having otherwise looked like a long shot for the all-important top 10 - a place in which grants Q2 participation on Saturday.
Pecco Bagnaia looked much more potent after his bleak outings in the Hungarian and Catalan Grands Prix, placing fourth - 0.230s off the pace - behind VR46's Franco Morbidelli and ahead of Gresini Ducati's Alex Marquez.
Advanced to Q2: M Marquez, Bezzecchi, Morbidelli, Bagnaia, A Marquez, Mir, Marini, Martin, Acosta, Di Giannantonio
Will take part in Q1: Zarco, Quartararo, Binder, Vinales, R Fernandez, Miller, Bastianini, Aldeguer, Fernandez, Rins, Ogura, Oliveira, Chantra
While the top five were relatively comfortable, it was a messy end of the session for many of their peers as they scrambled to get into the top 10 while navigating near-constant yellow flags.
The first to trigger one was Augusto Fernandez on the new V4 Yamaha prototype, Fernandez having a very mild crash at Turn 2 that didn't appear to do much damage to the bike.
He ended up six tenths back from the lead inline-four Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo, in what was another very encouraging outing for the new V4 engine.
A painful one for @JoanMirOfficial at Turn 9
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) September 12, 2025
Is P4 enough to keep his Q2 spot with a little over 2 minutes to go? 🤔#SanMarinoGP 🇸🇲 pic.twitter.com/M0SGQakZsl
Fernandez's crash was followed by Joan Mir coming off at Turn 9, though Mir had already done enough to book a top-10 spot. Then, in quick succession, came crashes for Raul Fernandez and Jack Miller - as well as Brad Binder's KTM losing its chain.
Mir's Honda team-mate Luca Marini had been one of the faster riders out on track through the day, but looked like he was going to be caught out by the yellow flags - before pulling out the seventh-fastest time at the last moment to secure a Q2 spot at Honda stablemate Johann Zarco's expense.
Also advancing to Q2 directly are Pedro Acosta (as the sole KTM rider in the top 10) and Fabio Di Giannantonio.
