Marc Marquez heads into MotoGP qualifying for the Aragon Grand Prix as the man to beat after topping the timesheets in third practice, while the returning Valentino Rossi scraped into Q2.
After Friday’s running was hampered by poor weather, Saturday’s third session was a frantic affair as the field vied for a place inside the top 10.
KTM wildcard Mika Kallio was the early pacesetter with a 1m49.926s, though was soon deposed by Marquez – the Honda rider edging a few tenths clear with a 1m49.564s.
The Spaniard improved to a 1m49.411s on his next lap, lowering that time by a further two tenths with 17 minutes to go.
Andrea Dovizioso – who leads the standings with Marquez on 199 points – briefly knocked the Honda rider off of top spot with a 1m48.881s, though the Spaniard smashed this with a 1m48.252s with four minutes left.
Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales endured a nightmare day on Friday in the damp conditions, but was much more competitive this morning in second spot – 0.310 seconds off of Marquez.
Dani Pedrosa, who led the timesheets after Friday’s running, completed the top three ahead of Aspar Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista and Kallio.
Dovizioso slipped to sixth at the chequered flag, while Aleix Espargaro jumped up to seventh in the closing stages ahead of Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Iannone, who crashed at Turn 5 on his final lap.
Third practice proved to be Rossi‘s first dry track time of the weekend, and though he did not encounter too much pain in his right leg on Friday he expected to struggle a little more in third practice.
Completing 18 laps this morning, Rossi managed to secure a place in the second part of qualifying after ending the session 10th and just under a second off of the pace.
0.063s back from the Italian came his former team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, who will face Q1 later today alongside Pol Espargaro, Danilo Petrucci and the Marc VDS duo of Tito Rabat and Jack Miller, who fell at the first corner 25 minutes in.
Saturday morning proved tough for the Tech3 team, with both Johann Zarco and Jonas Folger crashing..
The former was able to return to track, but was only 19th on the timesheets, while Folger slid to 23rd and did not complete any more laps after taking a heavy hit from his Yamaha in his Turn 2 spill.
An early crash for Sam Lowes curtailed his session, and he slid from seventh on the combined times to last. Compatriot Bradley Smith was two seconds off of fifth-placed Kallio in 22nd after a difficult morning.
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