MotoGP began the second day of practice at Catalunya after the tragic news of the passing of Luis Salom after the accident yesterday in the Moto2 FP2 session. For safety reasons the last part of the Catalan track was modified, adopting a slower configuration similar to the one used by Formula 1.

This means that a lot of changes had to be made to the Aprilia RS-GP machines that are making their absolute début on this track, ridden by Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl, in terms of both electronics and the seamless gearbox ratios. These changes were tested in the morning FP3 session (extended 60 minutes instead of the regulation 45) and in the FP4 session that preceded qualifying. In line with what had already occurred yesterday, the clear difficulty managing the tyres over race distance emerged due to the characteristics of the track and the typically summer temperatures on the Montmelò circuit.

The Aprilia Racing Team Gresini riders finished the decisive qualifying session in eighteenth place with Bradl, who improved his feeling compared to yesterday, and twenty-first with Bautista, conditioned by a bike change due to a harmless crash in FP4. This means that they will start respectively from the sixth and seventh row.