British MotoGP: Miller leads Espargaro in third practice

The cooler conditions for FP3 at Silverstone meant the combined timesheets went largely unchanged for the first half of the 45-minute session.

After 25 minutes only reigning world champion Joan Mir in 12th, LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami in 14th and Pramac Ducati’s Johann Zarco in 15th had improved on their Friday lap times.

Moments late Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro made the first significant improvement as he moved up to third overall with a 1m59.840s.

With just over 11 minutes to go, Quartararo’s Friday benchmark was finally toppled by Ducati’s Miller.

The Australian – who was second overall after Friday – found himself with Suzuki’s Rins as a reference ahead of him and produced a 1m59.288s to go fastest of all.

In the closing stages, the timing screens were awash with session-best sector times as the field put on their charges for a direct spot in the Q2 qualifying session.

But no one could topple Miller’s time, Aprilia’s Espargaro his closest challenger with a 1m59.386s – the Spaniard just 0.098 seconds adrift.

Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin leaped up to third late on ahead of Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, the championship leader remaining second on the combined times courtesy of his 1m59.317s lap from FP2.

Francesco Bagnaia completed the top five on the second factory Ducati ahead of Honda’s Pol Espargaro, who bagged a place in Q2 despite a late crash at Stowe. 

Valentino Rossi felt he had to find a second on his Friday best to make it into Q2 on Saturday and did just exactly that in FP3, the Petronas SRT rider producing a 1m59.553s to go seventh quickest ahead of Mir, KTM’s Brad Binder and Honda’s Marc Marquez. 

Johann Zarco will face a volatile Q1 session later this afternoon, with the Pramac rider set to be joined by the likes of Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow – who did run as high as ninth at one stage before dropping to 13th – and Rins, who crashed at Farm curve late on while on a flying lap.

KTM’s Miguel Oliveira continued to struggle at Silverstone in FP3 and was only 19^th on his factory RC16, 1.5s off the pace, while Tech 3 counterpart Danilo Petrucci in 17^th suffered a mechanical failure at the end of the session. 

MotoGP debutant Jake Dixon suffered his first tumble 15 minutes into FP3 when he slid off at Brooklands, with the SRT rider ending the morning in last spot.

Ahead of the session, Aprilia announced Lorenzo Savadori has been withdrawn from the remainder of the British GP as he continues to struggle with the broken ankle he suffered in a fiery Styrian GP crash.

British MotoGP - FP3 results:

Cla	#	Rider		Bike	Time	Gap
1	43	Jack Miller		Ducati	1'59.288
2	41	Aleix Espargaro		Aprilia	1'59.386	0.098
3	89	Jorge Martin		Ducati	1'59.396	0.108
4	20	Fabio Quartararo		Yamaha	1'59.461	0.173
5	63	Francesco Bagnaia		Ducati	1'59.515	0.227
6	44	Pol Espargaro		Honda	1'59.515	0.227
7	46	Valentino Rossi		Yamaha	1'59.553	0.265
8	36	Joan Mir		Suzuki	1'59.651	0.363
9	33	Brad Binder		KTM	1'59.671	0.383
10	93	Marc Marquez		Honda	1'59.683	0.395
11	5	Johann Zarco		Ducati	1'59.725	0.437
12	30	Takaaki Nakagami		Honda	2'00.053	0.765
13	35	Cal Crutchlow		Yamaha	2'00.075	0.787
14	73	Alex Marquez		Honda	2'00.157	0.869
15	42	Alex Rins		Suzuki	2'00.337	1.049
16	27	Iker Lecuona		KTM	2'00.359	1.071
17	9	Danilo Petrucci		KTM	2'00.545	1.257
18	10	Luca Marini		Ducati	2'00.548	1.260
19	88	Miguel Oliveira		KTM	2'00.883	1.595
20	23	Enea Bastianini		Ducati	2'01.446	2.158
21	96	Jake Dixon		Yamaha	2'02.814	3.526
22	32	Lorenzo Savadori		Aprilia
View full results