Marc Marquez took honours in FP3 at the Red Bull Ring, the Honda man managing a time just a tenth slower than the MotoGP lap record.
Marquez immediately improved his fastest Friday time with a 1:23.788 on only his second flying lap of the session, although Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales had something to say on the matter.
He shattered Marquez’s time by nearly two-tenths, posting a 1:23.591 to shoot to the top of the times just prior to mid-way through the 45-minute test.
It looked for a while that we would have three different factories leading three separate practice sessions, but a late flyer from Marquez made sure this was not to be.
The Spaniard pumped in a blistering 1:23.251 on his final run of the session, a time just over a tenth slower than the out-right MotoGP lap record at the 4.3km Red Bull Ring Circuit, held by Andrea Iannone from 2016 when the Italian competed for the factory Ducati team.
Vinales therefore had to make do with second fastest, although safe in the knowledge that he would not have to contest Q1 later on today. Andrea Dovizioso managed third fastest on the first of the GP19 Ducati’s, albeit over three-tenths down on Marquez’s benchmark.
His team-mate Danilo Petrucci followed close behind in fourth, while Fabio Quartararo closed out the top five on his Petronas SRT Yamaha.
Valentino Rossi managed to secure an automatic Q2 spot having ended Friday running outside the top ten, the veteran taking an impressive sixth quickest time during the session, while Jack Miller slipped to seventh after his strong top-four showing for Pramac yesterday.
Takaaki Nakagami was eighth fastest for LCR Honda-the only satellite Honda automatically through to Q2 as Cal Crutchlow could only manage 11th quickest overall- while Alex Rins and Pol Espargaro will also both progress directly into Q2 on their Suzuki and KTM machines.
Aside from Crutchlow, Tech 3 KTM's Miguel Oliveira also narrowly missed out on a direct passage to Q2.
The Portuguese ace set an impressive seventh quickest time yesterday to start today’s action within the auto Q2 places, but was unable to improve sufficiently and fell to 12th in the order, meaning he will also have to take part in the first stage of qualifying.
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