Petronas Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo toppled 2021 team-mate Maverick Vinales from the top of the Friday MotoGP timesheets at Misano by 0.009s in a session that saw the top 16 covered by one second.
Quartararo used a hard front/soft rear combination to set a 1’32.189 to oust the Monster Yamaha of Vinales who was the only rider in the top ten not to improve on his lap from this morning but it was good enough to fend off everyone besides the Frenchman.
Flying Franky Morbidelli made it a Yamaha clean sweep at the top as he fired in a time good enough for third place and only 0.178s off the pace. When you add in Valentino Rossi's sixth place, Yamaha have occupied almost half the top ten slots.
Which is not an uncommon occurrence, granted. However, KTM have done the same with Pol Espargaro leading the Austrian charge in fourth on the combined sheets, Iker Lecuona fifth, Brad Binder bouncing back from an early crash to finish in eighth and Miguel Oliveira - last this morning - in ninth.
Only Danilo Petrucci - who was also well off the pace this morning - on the works Ducati and Aleix Espargaro have snuck into the top ten while Andrea Dovizoso and Taka Nakagami are last two of the provisional qualifying two men.
Only Suzuki are currently missing from the top 12 as Alex Rins ended in 13th place and Joan Mir in 15th after the latter had a high-speed trip into the gravel at turn 11 but kept it upright.
Britian's Bradley Smith wasn't able to match his time from this morning and he slipped back to 16th but is still in front of Jack Miller. Injured riders Pecco Bagnaia and Cal Crutchlow were 18th and 19th with the latter unable to improve on his time from this morning.
