Morbidelli a class apart, three title contenders in Q1

Franco Morbidelli topped the third MotoGP practice session ahead of the Valencian Grand Prix, as championship leader Joan Mir secured an automatic Q2 spot while his closest adversaries Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins did not.

Rain dampened the Ricardo Tormo circuit in the lead-up to the Saturday morning practice session, and though the track surface wasn’t too visibly affected it meant there was only extremely limited, wet-tyre running in the opening minutes – with Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori alone in setting a time.

But Quartararo, needing an improvement to make Q2, ventured out on slicks just past the 10-minute mark and almost immediately went 10 seconds quicker than Savadori – though he was still some way off the best Friday times.

By the end of his run, which came around the halfway point in the session, Quartararo got within a second and a half of Jack Miller’s Friday benchmark. But as more and more riders followed his example in heading out on slicks, the Frenchman was knocked off the top spot by Pol Espargaro.

Big improvements then followed from Yamaha riders Maverick Vinales and Morbidelli, the latter becoming the first rider to go faster than he had done on Friday as he logged a 1m30.751s.

Espargaro reclaimed the top spot as the chequered flag approached, but Morbidelli immediately went quicker still, becoming the first rider to dip below Miller’s Friday effort and by some margin too.

Morbidelli’s 1m30.168s was left standing as the fastest time of the weekend by nearly half a second, and meant he topped FP3 by 0.468s over Espargaro.

Avintia rider Johann Zarco completed the top three in the session on the best of the Ducatis, with Vinales filling out the top four.

A big improvement from Mir – who had looked in danger of being left in Q1 – with seconds left on the clock meant he placed fifth in the session and will contest Q2 later this afternoon.

He will be joined by Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda), Miguel Oliveira (Tech3 KTM) and Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) – as well as Miller and his Pramac team-mate Francesco Bagnaia, the pair alone in securing Q2 berths on the strength of their Friday times.

Quartararo briefly looked like he would make Q2, but in finishing ninth in FP3, he missed out by 0.002s on an automatic spot in the pole shoot-out.

Fellow title contenders Rins (Suzuki) and Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) came up a tenth short themselves, meaning only three of the six remaining title hopefuls are assured of Q2 spots.

Tech3 rookie Iker Lecuona, who was set to return to the track this weekend after having come out of quarantine, tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival and has been ruled out for the weekend.

He won’t be replaced for the Valencian GP, but Tech3 team boss Herve Poncharal confirmed the outfit will field KTM tester Mika Kallio at Portimao if Lecuona remains unavailable.

Practice 3 Results