Both riders were under the all-time lap record ahead of FP1’s leader, Andrea Locatelli. Danilo Petrucci led the independent team efforts from an impressive fourth position, ahead of Van der Mark and Sam Lowes.

Andrea Iannone was once again super impressive in FP2 as the maniac has always been a contender in the Melbourne circuit in his MotoGP past.

Finishing behind Rinaldi (8th) and Gardner (9th) was BMW’s Toprak Razgatlioglu. Albeit a lowkey effort by his lofty standards, Toprak did spend most of the session in the top five before being displaced later on as he was busy towing teammate Michael Van der Mark into fifth place.

But there will be no qualifying worries for the Turkish rider, as he did demonstrate an even faster pace in the Phillip Island test last Tuesday.

However, two men who will be spending longer nights in their garage are the reigning double world champion Alvaro Bautista and six-time world champion Jonathan Rea. The two finished the FP2 session in 12th and 16th respectively, after a dismal showing on Friday, and will be eager to sort their issues out before Saturday’s FP3 session.