Fabio Quartararo fired his way to the top of the times to lead the third practice session for the Americas Grand Prix, the Yamaha man heading Gresini’s Enea Bastianini.
The bulk of the 45-minute test was dedicated to race simulations for the majority of the field, with the first major improvement coming from LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami at around mid-distance as he moved into the overall top ten.
The rest of the field then began to start preparing for their final do-or-die efforts to secure an automatic pole shootout promotion spot, Bastianini banging in the fastest lap of the weekend – a 2:03.410s – to all-but guarantee a Q2 passage.
The Italian would be denied the top spot in the end though thanks to a last-minute improvement from Quartararo, the reigning MotoGP world champion posting a 2:02.361s on his last push tour to move to the head of the times, a position he would not relinquish.
This left Bastianini second ahead of Ducati’s Jack Miller, while Marc Marquez managed to make the best of the final split on his best lap being slowed marginally by Andrea Dovizioso – the RNF man on his own effort – to end up fourth on his Honda.
Johann Zarco could only manage 15th quickest in the FP3 times, though his Friday leading gambit of 2:02.542s would be enough to ultimately see him progress directly to Q2 due to having the fifth-best overall lap- the only man in the top ten not to improve on his opening day benchmark.
Francesco Bagnaia improved late on to take fifth in FP3 and sixth combined ahead of Pol Espargaro on the other Honda, while Joan Mir got lucky to hang onto eighth overall after crashing his Suzuki at Turn 11 with only half-a-dozen minutes to go.
Nakagami was eighth in FP3 to secure the ninth best overall effort, while the final automatic Q2 berth went the way of Luca Marini, the VR46 Ducati ace once again showing impressive one-lap performance.
Somewhat surprisingly both Aprilia’s missed out on the top ten after showing strong pedigree on Friday, series leader Aleix Espargaro ending up just missing out in 11th while Maverick Vinales was 13th just behind FP1 leader Alex Rins.
Jorge Martin struggled for speed on his Pramac Desmosedici as he languished down in 15th, a crash at Turn 16 early on doing little to help his cause.
KTM’s tricky weekend failed to get any better as all four of its machines clung to the foot of the times, Brad Binder ending up as the Austrian marque’s highest classified entry in 17th, despite the South African crashing on his final effort just moments after brother Darryn also went down, the RNF Yamaha pilot falling victim to Turn 1.
MotoGP’s 2022 rookies struggled to breach the top 20 meanwhile as Remy Gardner ended up as the best of the newcomers in 20th for the Tech 3 KTM outfit.
Keyword: Quartararo paces Americas FP3, series leader Espargaro to contest Q1