Brno MotoGP: Rossi tops FP3, Vinales to Q1

Rossi was in danger of having to take part in Q1 as he was only 11th when the chequered flag fell, but responded with a last-minute effort of 1m55.175s to end up on top.

Marquez quickly beat Dani Pedrosa’s Friday benchmark with a 1m55.637s at the start of the session, with LCR's Cal Crutchlow soon doing likewise moving up to second.

The Honda duo locking out the top two for most of the session, until Crutchlow edged out Marquez with 11 minutes remaining, which was followed by the Pramac Ducati of Danilo Petrucci going even quicker with a time of 1m55.369s.

Petrucci led for four minutes before his factory Ducati counterpart Jorge Lorenzo - sampling the new fairing first tried by Petrucci on Friday - moved ahead by 0.041s, but the Pramac rider fought back during the final minute.

However, Petrucci still had to settle for second thanks to Rossi's last-minute flyer, with Lorenzo also improving during the dying stages but staying third, ahead of Marquez.

Andrea Iannone was fifth in an otherwise disappointing session for Suzuki, as Alex Rins and wildcard Sylvain Guintoli were only 17th and 24th respectively.

Honda duo Pedrosa and Crutchlow were sixth and seventh, the latter ending the session with a crash at Turn 3.

Johann Zarco took eighth on the Tech 3 Yamaha, with Avintia Ducati’s Tito Rabat and the second factory GP18 of Andrea Dovizioso both making it to Q2 behind the Frenchman.

Vinales was best of the rest in 11th, missing out on the top 10 by 0.055s, followed by Aleix Espargaro's Aprilia.

Honda wildcard Stefan Bradl was 20th, 1.5s off the pace.

Takaaki Nakagami crashed at Turn 7 on the second LCR bike, while Tech 3's Hafizh Syahrin, who spent most of the session inside the top 10, fell at Turn 13 and ended up only 16th.

FP3 results:

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'55.175
2	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'55.261	0.086
3	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	1'55.326	0.151
4	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'55.458	0.283
5	29	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	1'55.499	0.324
6	26	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	1'55.517	0.342
7	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	1'55.617	0.442
8	5	Johann Zarco	Yamaha	1'55.628	0.453
9	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	1'55.663	0.488
10	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1'55.721	0.546
11	25	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	1'55.776	0.601
12	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	1'55.810	0.635
13	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	1'55.841	0.666
14	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	1'55.916	0.741
15	21	Franco Morbidelli	Honda	1'55.933	0.758
16	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Yamaha	1'56.013	0.838
17	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	1'56.109	0.934
18	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	1'56.280	1.105
19	38	Bradley Smith	KTM	1'56.486	1.311
20	6	Stefan Bradl	Honda	1'56.686	1.511
21	45	Scott Redding	Aprilia	1'56.902	1.727
22	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	1'56.964	1.789
23	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	1'57.008	1.833
24	50	Sylvain Guintoli	Suzuki	1'57.204	2.029
25	12	Thomas Luthi	Honda	1'57.322	2.147
26	10	Xavier Simeon	Ducati	1'57.560	2.385