Petronas Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli opened a near-half second gap over the MotoGP pack in third practice at Valencia while team-mate and championship challenger Fabio Quartararo missed qualifying two by 0.002s and will go into Q1.
Morbidelli found eight-tenths of a second over his pace yesterday to snatch top spot from Jack Miller on the combined timesheets but the Australian didn’t improve today, relying on his time from yesterday.
n a session that began wet and had spots of rain throughout, Quartararo was the first man out on slicks with 27 minutes left to run but the first man to better his Friday time was Morbidelli, who swung into fourth place overall with a 1'30.751 before really dropping the hammer with a final lap of 1'30.125.
Red Bull KTM's also improved on his time from yesterday to claim third place with a 1'30.636 to trail Miller by 0.014s as Johann Zarco had to survive on his Friday times to remain in fifth ahead of qualifying.
Monster Yamaha's Maverick Vinales hauled himself out of the Q1 black hole with a 1'30.679 set on a medium front and soft Michelin rear. LCR Honda's Taka Nakagami didn't improve on his time, so he remained in sixth.
MotoGP points leader Joan Mir left it late to take his place in Q2, putting in a 1'30.734 on his penultimate lap to secure seventh place.
Pecco Bagnaia set his best time of 1'30.742 yesterday which was enough for seventh overall. Miguel Oliveira improved to a 1'30.849 for ninth with Aleix Espargaro squeaking into the top ten and ast Q2 spot by 0.002s from Quartararo.
Danilo Petrucci, Andrea Dovizioso, Cal Crutchlow and Alex Rins will all fight it out for the two spaces left for the quickest men in Q1 while Valentino Rossi is down in 18th place and 1.2s off the pace.
