Francesco Bagnaia recovered from an early crash in FP3 at Mugello to lead the way on Saturday morning, while Marc Marquez will have to contest Q1 after managing only 21st.
The Italian seemed to struggle with the feeling of his Desmosedici in the early portion of the session while on a full tank of fuel to get information for the race, Bagnaia running wide at Turn 1 on two occasions before crashing at the high-speed Turn 12.
The 2021 MotoGP vice-champion recovered later on though to post a stunning 1:45.393s – the quickest effort of the weekend so far – as the test reached its climax, a time that put him over four tenths-of-a-second clear of Friday leader Aleix Espargaro.
The Aprilia man managed to shave some time from his personal best later on to move within 0.276s of Bagnaia, though he would have to make do with second in the session.
Luca Marini was a strong third on his VR46-run Ducati ahead of Johann Zarco’s Pramac example, with the sister VR46 machine of Marco Bezzecchi completing the top five.
Ducati’s impressive display within the top ten continued with Enea Bastianini in sixth for Gresini – the three-time 2022 race winner having looked good to challenge Bagnaia’s benchmark at the end before crashing out at the final bend.
Jorge Martin made it six Desmosedici’s within the top ten in seventh overall, with Pol Espargaro managing to move his Honda into eighth late on just ahead of fellow RC213-V pilot Takaaki Nakagami.
Fabio Quartararo meanwhile just about held onto the final guaranteed-Q2 spot in tenth on his Yamaha, the Frenchman fortunate that 11th placed Maverick Vinales made a mistake that lost him a potential several-tenth improvement.
Marc tried his best to follow the reigning world champion to lift himself into Q2 contention, though the six-time premier class world champion could only muster up a disastrous 21st best time just behind the other factory M1 of Franco Morbidelli and Ducati tester Michele Pirro.
Suzuki’s tricky weekend failed to improve with both its riders now forced to run in Q1, Alex Rins 12th with Mir a lowly 16th respectively, while Jack Miller also has work to do to join his fellow Ducati peers in the pole shootout with the Aussie only 15th on the timesheets.
Miguel Oliveira was the fastest of KTM’s contingent in 14th with team-mate Brad Binder having slipped all the way to 18th after ending Friday seventh overall.
