Francesco Bagnaia fired in the fastest time of the Styrian Grand Prix weekend so far to lead FP3 for Ducati ahead of series leader Fabio Quartararo.
Ducati had looked rather quiet throughout Friday and most of the Saturday morning session as it focussed on making the Desmosedici perform well in race conditions, only unleashing its true pace in the closing moments of third practice as it looked to secure direct-to-Q2 spots for its riders.
Jorge Martin teased the real level of Ducati early on as he shot up to second overall with a rapid effort towards the start of the session, before his GP20 team-mates Bagnaia, Jack Miller and fellow Pramac man Johann Zarco all began to breach the top ten.
Bagnaia reached the top spot for the first time as the session entered its final throws, although his benchmark was quickly surpassed by an improving Quartararo.
The Italian wasn’t quite finished though and managed to find a further few hundredths to bang in a 1:23.114s as the chequered flag came out, ensuring him both the fastest tour of the weekend so far as well as the best FP3 time.
Quartararo therefore had to make do with second, though he’ll likely be satisfied having been sat well outside the Q2 bubble in 12th just seconds before the end after having his penultimate gambit deleted due to track limits.
Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales ended up third quickest ahead of Martin, the rookie finding further improvement at the end, while reigning MotoGP world champion Joan Mir continued to prove Suzuki’s pedigree with the fifth best time.
Zarco ended up sixth ahead of Honda’s Marc Marquez, while Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro also made Q2 once again with eighth overall in FP3.
Jack Miller was ninth on the second factory Ducati while Friday leader Takaaki Nakagami just clung on to the final direct Q2 passage after struggling to improve his best effort from yesterday, the LCR man holding off factory Honda pilot Pol Espargaro by just 0.017s.
Dani Pedrosa put in a respectable performance to end up 12th as the fastest KTM-giving him a real opportunity to secure one of the final two pole shootout spots in Q1 this afternoon-just ahead of Alex Rins, who failed to replicate the strong speed of his team-mate on the second Suzuki GSX-RR.
Cal Crutchlow managed to find more pace relative to Friday as the Brit moved up to 18th at one point towards the conclusion of FP3, though he ultimately found himself shuffled back to 23rd by the end-albeit only a few tenths back from team-mate Valentino Rossi who looks to be struggling once again at the Red Bull Ring in 19th.
KTM’s unexpectedly sub-par performance was underlined with Brad Binder being the first of the marque’s full-timers down in 15th, just ahead of Miguel Oliveira who is out despite his nasty incident in FP2 yesterday afternoon.
