Danilo Petrucci topped a sodden third MotoGP practice session from Motegi in Japan that got underway after a 20 minute delay due to the sub-par conditions.
Several of the Motegi venue’s corners had become overcome with deep standing water throughout the preceding Moto2 session, forcing organisers to delay the start of FP3 as the track was tended to.
Marc Marquez was fastest out the blocks following the relatively short delay, the Spaniard posting a 1:57.925 to lead the rest by over two seconds.
He then went on to bang in a string of improvements as he began to get a feel for the wet track surface, shaving roughly a second every lap from his time to eventually settle for a 1:54.884.
This time remained on top for most of the remainder of the session, before Petrucci went just 0.174 faster to steal the session on his final flyer of FP3.
Marquez was unable to hit back and therefore closed out the test second fastest ahead of Franco Morbidelli on the first of the Petronas SRT Yamaha’s.
Maverick Vinales capped off a top four that will all progress direct to Q2 due to their Friday performances in the dry, with Sylvain Guintoli next up as the top Suzuki runner in fifth.
Andrea Dovizioso was sixth on the second factory Ducati as the next man to head straight to Q2, while fastest Friday man Fabio Quartararo managed the eighth quickest time in FP3 behind Alex Rins.
A pair of KTM’s rounded out the top ten in this session, as Pol Espargaro-who at one point early on looked set to challenge Marquez at the head of the timesheets- led Tech 3’s Miguel Oliveira.
Four of the ten Q2 runners failed to breach the top ten positions in this session, with Joan Mir and Valentino Rossi the highest in 11th and 12th respectively, while Aleix Espargaro was 14th for Aprilia just behind Mika Kallio on the second factory KTM.
Jack Miller was the slowest Q2 runner down in 18th for Pramac, just pipping team-mate Francesco Bagnaia for the position.
Discussion about this post