Reigning MotoGP World Champion grabbed back the advantage in this morning’s third MotoGP practice and was the first man to dip under the 1’33s barrier at Misano this weekend to carry a 0.154s lead into qualifying.
The Repsol Honda man used the hard rear Michelin on his first run and then swapped to a medium and charged to a 1’33.190 to depose Danilo Petrucci from the top of the combined timesheets and then bettered it with a 1’32.958 on his final effort.
Marquez is as fast on the hard tyre as he is the medium, setting six 1'33s lap on each while everyone else in the pack stuck to the medium, including Movistar Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales, who clawed his way into second place on his last lap, putting in a 1’33.112.
Pramac Ducati’s Petrucci didn’t improve on his time from yesterday but his 1’33.231 was enough to keep hold of third place and the next ten places were covered by less than seven-tenths of a second as Alvaro Bautista finished in 13th with a 1’33.937.
Britain’s Cal Crutchlow ended in fourth place, bettering his time from yesterday even though his is still riding with the finger he sliced open in a cuisine incident. The LCR Honda man ended on a 1’33.240 and 0.282s off the pace.
Andrea Dovizioso didn’t improve and remained in fourth place while Dani Pedrosa was another man who didn’t find more pace and had a crash at turn two with two minutes left to run. Jorge Lorenzo was the only works Ducati rider who did improve, putting his GP17 in seventh.
Johann Zarco hauled himself into qualifying two with a 1’33.584 to bag eighth place with Michele Pirro’s time from yesterday enough for ninth. Aleix Espargaro found two-tenths on the Aprilia to take the final automatic Q2 spot.
Andrea Iannone is today using a 2018 chassis as weather for a planned test on Monday looks poor. He took set a 1’34.263 in the session, half a second off his best from yesterday on the 2017 bike.
Tito Rabat, Alvaro Bautista, Jack Miller and Loris Baz completed the top 15. Bradley Smith ended in 22nd and Sam Lowes crashed for the third time this year.
