Miller shades Espargaro to head British MotoGP FP3

Jack Miller blazed to the fastest lap of the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone to lead third practice ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro.

Fabio Quartararo looked to have the field under control following his blistering run to the top spot on Friday that left him over half-a-second clear of anyone else, while it seemed-even for the man himself-that even matching his 1:59.317s would be a tall order.

Miller though was up for the challenge, and with a pair of new soft tyres-plus a dose of slipstream from the Suzuki of Alex Rins-he posted a 1:59.288s as the test entered its final third, though by this point Quartararo was beginning to wind himself up for a run at the new benchmark.

The Frenchman posted several session-best sectors, though ultimately found himself unable to eclipse his own best time, his 1:59.461s leaving him fourth overall behind the impressive Espargaro-who posted a pair of efforts good enough for third on the combined times and second in FP3- and Styrian GP winner Jorge Martin.

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Quartararo’s Friday time was enough to keep him second overall though ahead of the pair, with Francesco Bagnaia finding a decent improvement late on to join them in heading directly to the pole shootout on Saturday afternoon.

Pol Espargaro was unable to set a final timed lap after crashing out, though the gambit he had posted just moments earlier was enough to keep him sixth overall ahead of Valentino Rossi-the Italian having fired in an opening sector over two-tenths faster than anyone else before his lap was canned due to yellow flags.

Joan Mir managed to lift himself from 13^th at the end of Friday to eighth ahead of KTM’s Brad Binder, with Marc Marquez just clinging on to the final automatic Q2 berth in tenth.

Johann Zarco missed out to the Honda rider by just 0.042s, meaning he will have to battle for one of the final two spots in the shootout alongside the likes of Takaaki Nakagami, home hero Cal Crutchlow-who was shuffled outside the top ten right at the end-and Rins, who crashed on his final attempt.

The injured Miguel Oliveira continued to struggle on Saturday morning on his way to 19^th and a full 1.595 seconds off the pace, while Jake Dixon ended up 3.5 seconds from the top spot after suffering the first crash in the premier class at Brooklands early in the session.