Espargaro puts Suzuki on top in FP2

World champion Marc Marquez looked set to finish first, but Espargaro put a very late flyer - including an impressive Sector 4 time - to outpace the Honda rider by nearly three tenths of a second.

Marquez, quickest in the morning, had to settle for second place ahead of teammate Dani Pedrosa, who was over six tenths of a second off Espargaro's pace.

Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso finished in fourth, with Espargaro's teammate Maverick Vinales completing the top five.

Championship leader Valentino Rossi continued to struggle for pace at the Barcelona circuit and finished outside of the top 10 in 11th position. Teammate Jorge Lorenzo was seventh fastest.

Espargaro was once again the early pace-setter on the Suzuki, initially lapping in the 1:42 before becoming the first rider to lap in the 1m:41s seven minutes into the session, with Lorenzo following closely.

Like in opening practice, Marquez waited until the final minutes to show his real pace, going quickest with slightly over two minutes to go despite finding traffic on his flying lap.

The world champion went even quicker on his following lap to increase his gap to Pedrosa, who moved up to second in the dying seconds.

However, Espargaro flew to P1 after the chequered flag had fallen with a sensational Sector 4, where he outpaced his rivals by over three tenths.

The session was incident-free for the most part except for off-track excursion for Cal Crutchlow and later a fall for Scott Redding, who crashed out at Turn 10 and was forced to abandon his bike and use the spare one for the remainder of the session.