Red Bull Ring MotoGP: Zarco fastest in FP3, Espargaro to Q1

Espargaro comes to the Red Bull Ring just 22 points behind championship leader Fabio Quartararo, with the Austrian GP expected to be a difficult weekend for the Yamaha rider.

However, while Quartararo goes into qualifying later on Saturday afternoon second overall at the end of FP3, Espargaro could only manage 11th and must go through Q1 for only the second time this season.

In the cooler conditions of the Styrian morning, lap time improvements on the overall timesheet were minimal.

Straight away on a cold tyre, VR46 Ducati rider Luca Marini crashed up at Turn 3 on his first outlap from pitlane.

There would be two more crashes inside the first 15 minutes of FP3, with Tech 3 rookie Remy Gardner taking a second tumble of the weekend when he slid off at Turn 9, while Aprilia test rider and wildcard Lorenzo Savadori became the second victim of the new chicane.

It wouldn’t be until 20 minutes into the 45-minute session when the first serious lap time improvement came in the form of a 1m29.843s from KTM’s Miguel Oliveira to get within 0.006 seconds of pacesetter Johann Zarco.

Zarco’s Friday best would finally be toppled a couple of minutes later by Suzuki’s Joan Mir, who went fastest with a 1m29.811s.

Jack Miller on the factory team Ducati would be the next to go top of the pile with a 1m29.787s, before his Gresini-mounted counterpart Enea Bastianini deposed him with 13 minutes to go on his year-old Desmosedici with a 1m29.508s.

While the Ducatis lit up the timing screens around the Red Bull Ring, life proved difficult for Aprilia’s Espargaro.

The Spaniard struggled all day on Friday to get to grips with the new chicane at the Austrian GP venue and sat outside of the Q2 places as he pushed on a soft tyre time attack in the final 13 minutes of FP3.

But he overstepped the mark at the second part of the chicane, suffering an identical front-end crash to that of Savadori.

While Espargaro’s second bike was being prepared, Miller returned to the top of the order with a 1m29.280s before Espargaro’s chief title rival Quartararo went faster with a 1m29.268s.

On his first flying lap after his crash with just under four minutes to go, Espargaro managed to move up to ninth – though came close to hitting Zarco on the exit of Turn 1 as the Pramac rider was coming out of pitlane.

Late improvements for Suzuki’s Alex Rins and Pramac’s Jorge Martin - who’d set an identical 1m29.540s to the Aprilia rider – immediately dumped Espargaro back to 11th, where he would remain after aborting his final lap.

Zarco found a 1m28.964s on his final flying lap to end FP3 fastest of all, with Quartararo 0.153s adrift in second ahead of Miller and Martin, who improved to a 1m29.324s at the end.

Francesco Bagnaia rounded out the top five on the second factory team Ducati, with Bastianini heading Rins and KTM’s Brad Binder in sixth. The final Q2 places went to Maverick Vinales on the second of the Aprilias and Mir on the second Suzuki.

Espargaro was denied a Q2 place by just 0.002s at the chequered flag, with LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami shadowing him in 12th.

They will be joined in Q1 by the other three KTM riders, the rest of the Hondas, both VR46 and RNF riders, Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli and Gresini rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio.

Qualifying for the 2022 MotoGP Austrian GP will get underway at 2:10pm local time.

Austrian GP - FP3 results:

Cla	Rider		Bike	Time	Gap
1	Johann Zarco		Ducati	1'28.964
2	Fabio Quartararo		Yamaha	1'29.117	0.153
3	Jack Miller		Ducati	1'29.280	0.316
4	Jorge Martin		Ducati	1'29.324	0.360
5	Francesco Bagnaia		Ducati	1'29.377	0.413
6	Enea Bastianini		Ducati	1'29.457	0.493
7	Alex Rins		Suzuki	1'29.473	0.509
8	Brad Binder		KTM	1'29.521	0.557
9	Maverick Viales		Aprilia	1'29.523	0.559
10	Joan Mir		Suzuki	1'29.538	0.574
11	Aleix Espargaro		Aprilia	1'29.540	0.576
12	Takaaki Nakagami		Honda	1'29.585	0.621
13	Marco Bezzecchi		Ducati	1'29.623	0.659
14	Fabio Di Giannantonio		Ducati	1'29.641	0.677
15	Luca Marini		Ducati	1'29.684	0.720
16	Pol Espargaro		Honda	1'29.710	0.746
17	Franco Morbidelli		Yamaha	1'29.755	0.791
18	Miguel Oliveira		KTM	1'29.821	0.857
19	Andrea Dovizioso		Yamaha	1'29.845	0.881
20	Alex Marquez		Honda	1'30.017	1.053
21	Stefan Bradl		Honda	1'30.026	1.062
22	Darryn Binder		Yamaha	1'30.472	1.508
23	Remy Gardner		KTM	1'30.554	1.590
24	Ral Fernndez		KTM	1'31.204	2.240
25	Lorenzo Savadori		Aprilia	1'31.699	2.735
View full results