Mir fastest for Suzuki in Styrian GP third practice

Suzuki MotoGP rider Joan Mir set the pace in third practice for the Styrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring.

Mir outpaced a recovering Fabio Quartararo by a tenth and a half, the championship-leading Petronas Yamaha-rider having shown a marked improvement and booked an automatic Q2 spot after he was left facing Q1 by a disappointing Friday practice.

Avintia Ducati rider Johann Zarco made his return to the track three days on from surgery on a fractured right scaphoid and immediately lit up the timesheets.

The Frenchman’s fifth lap was a 1m24.012s in Miguel Oliveira’s tow, launching Zarco to the top of the FP3 timesheets and instantly into the combined practice classification top 10 that determines automatic Q2 spots.

Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales jumped ahead of Zarco by a tenth shortly after the halfway point – as the customary late-FP3 qualifying simulations commenced early – and followed that up with the fastest lap of the weekend so far, a 1m23.617s right in Jack Miller’s wheel-tracks.

Quartararo lapped within 0.011s of Vinales right away, but it took until he equipped another new soft rear tyre for the final minutes for him to jump to the top, by just a hundredth over his 2021 works Yamaha team-mate.

Mir then leapfrogged both with six minutes left on the clock, and went faster still the next time around, ending up with a 1m23.456s that would secure him the FP3 honours.

But while his and Quartararo’s times would go unchallenged, two riders slotted in in the hundredth gap between Quartararo and Vinales.

These were LCR Honda’s FP1 pace-setter Takaaki Nakagami and Ducati’s Austrian Grand Prix winner Andrea Dovizioso.

KTM’s Friday pace-setter Pol Espargaro was one of the few riders not to improve on their Friday time, but came close – and it proved plenty good enough to secure him a Q2 spot anyway.

Oliveira of the Tech3 squad was the second-fastest KTM behind Espargaro, while Petronas Yamaha rider Franco Morbidelli launched himself into Q2 late on, having shrugged off the deletion of a prior Q2-worthy lap for track limits.

Suzuki’s Alex Rins and Pramac Ducati’s Jack Miller grabbed the final automatic Q2 spots. Miller was a tenth up on Mir after two sectors but dropped his Ducati into the gravel at Turn 6.

This led to a nervy conclusion to FP3 for the Austrian, but he held on to a Q2 spot by 0.003s over the works KTM of Brad Binder.

Zarco was 12th in the end and will join the likes of Binder, works Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci and the factory Yamaha of Valentino Rossi in Q1.

Honda’s Alex Marquez was the only rider besides Miller to crash, his fast Turn 9 fall disrupting his progress across the weekend and leaving him a quiet 20th-fastest in FP3.

Practice 3 Results