Three Ducati riders lead the MotoGP field at Misano after FP3: Jack Miller, Pecco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini. Stefan Bradl finished 19th on the combined timesheets under the watchful eye of Marc Márquez.
The sky was cloudy, but on Saturday morning it was initially dry in Misano with an air temperature of 23 degrees and a track temperature of 25 degrees.
Marc Márquez entered the Repsol Honda pits just in time for the start of MotoGP class FP3. This weekend, the eight-time world champion is still in the spectator role, on Tuesday he will climb back onto his RC213V for the Misano test for the first time since the fourth upper arm operation. He listened to Stefan Bradl’s comments and chatted with HRC manager Shinichi Kokubo, among others.
Fifteen minutes later, Remy Gardner crashed at Turn 14, but the Tech3 KTM rider was able to continue. After the Yamaha duo Quartararo and Morbidelli, the two Ducati Lenovo pilots Jack Miller and Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia also completed their laps in synchronous flight. Bagnaia was leading the FP3 standings at the halfway point of the 45-minute session with a 1:32.154.
For comparison: On Friday, his future teammate Enea Bastianini set the best time of the day with a time of 1:31.517 minutes. Bagnaia’s all-time lap record on the 4.226 km long Misano World Circuit with its ten right-hand and six left-hand corners has been 1:31.065 min since last year.
With 17 minutes left on the clock, the MotoGP aces picked up the first fresh soft rear tires for the “time attack”. However, before there were any first improvements in the top 10 of the combined timesheets, rain was indicated in sector 4.
The first few drops didn’t stop Quartararo from improving to 3rd place. Morbidelli and Bezzecchi also beat their Friday times, with Di Giannantonio crashing at Turn 6 with nine minutes to go.
The rain didn’t get heavier and Ducati factory rider Jack Miller set the new target time of 1:31.296 minutes shortly afterwards. Bagnaia also stayed below Bastianini’s FP2 best time, but this time was taken out of the ranking again because the track limits were exceeded.
Pol Espargaró went off the fast turn 15 with four minutes to go. At this point, the Repsol-Honda driver was still in 10th place, but there were still a number of attacks from the competition.
Rins and Oliveira moved into the top 10, but the Portuguese on the Red Bull-KTM suffered a crash at Turn 4 shortly after. Bagnaia came within seven hundredths of Miller twice, but failed to beat the Australian’s time. Bastianini kept his FP2 time ahead of Quartararo in 3rd place.
In the finish, Takaaki Nakagami caused yellow flags with a crash at Turn 3. That’s why the fastest lap times of Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi were invalid: Instead of places 7 and 10, the two await the detour via Q1. Morbidelli and Oliveira benefited from this and moved directly into Q2.
Stefan Bradl ended up in 16th place in the FP3 classification, 1.166 seconds behind. In the combined time list from the three free practice sessions, however, he can only be found in 19th place.
As a reminder: SPEEDWEEK.com ticks both qualifying sessions of the MotoGP class live from 2:10 p.m.
MotoGP combined timesheets after FP3 (September 3):
1. Miller, Ducati, 1:31,296 min
2. Bagnaia, Ducati, + 0.071 sec
3. Bastianini, Ducati, + 0.221
4. Quartararo, Yamaha, + 0,348
5. Rins, Suzuki, + 0,411
6. Zarco, Ducati, + 0.541
7. Viñales, Aprilia, + 0.548
8. Aleix Espargaró, Aprilia, + 0.633
9. Morbidelli, Yamaha, +0.641
10. Oliveira, KTM, + 0.659
11. Bezzecchi, Ducati, +0.660
12. Pol Espargaro, Honda, +0.779
13. Marini, Ducati, +0.780
14. Alex Marquez, Honda, +0.826
15. Martin, Ducati, +0.870
16. Pirro, Ducati, + 0.967
17. Brad Binder, KTM, + 1,062
18. By Giannantonio, Ducati, + 1.121
19. Bradl, Honda, +1.166
20. Nakagami, Honda, +1,210
21. Dovizioso, Yamaha, +1.420
22. Raúl Fernández, KTM, + 1,904
23. Darryn Binder, Yamaha, + 1,944
24. Gardner, KTM + 2,082
25. Watanabe, Suzuki, +4,387
MotoGP result FP3, Misano:
1. Miller, Ducati, 1:31,296 min
2. Bagnaia, Ducati, + 0.071 sec
3. Quartararo, Yamaha, + 0,348
4. Rins, Suzuki, + 0,411
5. Viñales, Aprilia, + 0.548
6. Morbidelli, Yamaha, +0.641
7. Oliveira, KTM, + 0.659
8. Bezzecchi, Ducati, +0.660
9. Pol Espargaro, Honda, +0.779
10. Marini, Ducati, +0.780
11. Alex Marquez, Honda, +0.826
12. Pirro, Ducati, + 0.967
13. Zarco, Ducati, + 1.054
14. Bastianini, Ducati, + 1.099
15. Di Giannantonio, Ducati, + 1.121
16. Bradl, Honda, +1.166
17. Aleix Espargaró, Aprilia, + 1.168
18. Nakagami, Honda, +1,210
19. Brad Binder, KTM, + 1,224
20. Dovizioso, Yamaha, +1.420
21. Martin, Ducati, +1,679
22. Darryn Binder, Yamaha, + 1,944
23. Raúl Fernández, KTM, + 2,044
24. Gardner, KTM + 2,082
25. Watanabe, Suzuki, +4,387