Bagnaia leads Quartararo by 0.001s in third Portimao practice

Francesco Bagnaia led MotoGP’s new world champion Fabio Quartararo by just 0.001s in third practice at Portimao as automatic Q2 spots were decided.

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Key moments

– Top three within 0.025s
– Alex Marquez, Marini among those dodging Q1
– Rough session for KTM and Aprilia

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Quartararo’s Friday benchmark was out of reach for most of the session, in which he and Bagnaia were again the early protagonists.

And Quartararo did find a tenth once he’d bolted on a pair of fresh softs, lowering the weekend’s reference laptime to a 1m39.206s – only for Bagnaia to then find an extra four thousandths of a second.

And though Quartararo attempted to retaliate late on, he could only find three thousandths, coming up just short of reclaiming the spot from Bagnaia despite a remarkable final sector.

Quartararo’s predecessor, the 2020 champion Joan Mir, made it an ultra-close top three by lapping within just a quarter of a tenth of the duo, in a rare show of single-lap speed for the Suzuki GSX-RR.

Jack Miller (Ducati) and Alex Marquez (LCR Honda) completed the top five, both within two tenths of the fastest lap.

Quartararo’s Yamaha team-mate Franco Morbidelli, still recovering from his injury, made it two Yamahas in the top six, followed by Mir’s Suzuki team-mate Alex Rins, Honda factory rider Pol Espargaro and Sky VR46 man Luca Marini, who benefitted from towing Bagnaia on his fastest lap.

Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin was the final rider to progress directly to Q2, getting the better of Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda) by 0.005s.

Peak Portimao! 🎢🤩

A textbook landing for @JohannZarco1! 🙌#AlgarveGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/zt7idECDvH

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) November 6, 2021

The only two Ducatis to miss out were Enea Bastianini and Johann Zarco, the latter among the few riders to fail to improve on their Friday effort.

Tech3 KTM rookie Iker Lecuona was the top KTM but only 12th and more than two tenths off a Q2 spot, with the next-best KTM – that of home hero Miguel Oliveira – a further two tenths down.

We've got nothing!!! 🤷‍♂️😂@_moliveira88 will take support anywhere he can find it! 🇵🇹#AlgarveGP 🏁 pic.twitter.com/TEYMQMvask

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) November 6, 2021

Aprilia completed the order in FP3, with Maverick Vinales ahead of Aleix Espargaro despite seemingly having had his late time attack compromised by an unseen issue.

Practice 3 Results