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Newly crowned Moto2™ World Champion Johann Zarco ends Friday’s practice on top ahead of Alex Rins and Thomas Luthi.

Ajo Motorsport’s Johann Zarco capped a day that saw him declared 2015 Moto2™ World Champion by topping the combined timesheets at the Twin Ring Motegi. The French rider lifted the title after the only man who could stop him from being crowned champion in Japan, Tito Rabat, was forced to withdraw from the Grand Prix due to injury. Rabat tried in vain to take to the track in FP1, before being declared unfit for the rest of the weekend, handing Zarco the title.

Zarco then set a 1’51.158 in FP2 to finish fastest overall, 0.039s ahead of Paginas Amarillas HP40’s Alex Rins. Rins crashed late on in the session at turn 10 but his time was good enough to end the day in second, ahead of the Derendinger Racing Interwetten of Thomas Luthi (+0.194s), as less than two-tenths of a second separated the provisional front row.

Speed Up Racing’s Sam Lowes (+0.382s) was fourth fastest overall, ahead of Luis Salom (+0.552s) on the of the second Paginas Amarillas HP40 Kalex. Idemitsu Honda Team Asia’s Takaaki Nakagami ended the day in sixth at his home Grand Prix, despite being one of a number of riders to fall foul of turn 10 during the two sessions.

Jonas Folger (AGR Team), Sandro Cortese (Dynavolt Intact GP), Axel Pons (AGR Team) and Hafizh Syahrin (Petronas Raceline Malaysia) completed a top ten that was separated by just 0.941s

Josh Hook (Technomag Racing Interwetten), substituting for the injured Dominique Aegerter, was another one to crash during the day, finishing down in 28th overall. Wildcards Yuki Takahashi (Moriwaki Racing) and Tomoyoshi Koyama (NTS T.Pro Project) were in 24th and 30th respectively.

Check out the combined Moto2™ FP1 & FP2 results; FP3 kicks off at 10:55am local time on Saturday in Motegi.