Vinales ups the pace from Marquez

Maverick Vinales has produced a final-lap flyer to take to spot at the end of FP3 from Marc Marquez at Sepang.

03 Nov 2018

Maverick Vinales has produced a final-lap flyer to take to spot at the end of FP3 from Marc Marquez at Sepang.

Fresh from victory at Phillip Island, Vinales has continued to impress on the factory Yamaha in Malaysia with strong practice pace capped by his final lap in FP3 of 1m 59.231s to edge out Marquez by just 0.026s to grab the headline time.

With the fight for automatic Q2 spots stepping up in the final 10 minutes of FP3, Pramac Ducat’s Jack Miller bolted to third place with his late lap attack along with Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) and Johann Zarco (Monster Yamaha Tech 3).

Pramac Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci used his final flying lap to secure his Q2 spot with fifth place in FP3 having been under threat in 10^th place, which saw Valentino Rossi shuffled down to seventh place on the Movistar Yamaha despite not matching his team-mate’s outright pace on his late qualifying-style lap.

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Andrea Iannone also held on to his Q2 spot even though he failed to improve for Suzuki compared to his Friday practice pace, while both Alvaro Bautista (Angel Nieto Ducati) and Franco Morbidelli (Marc VDS Honda) broke into the top ten in the session but were unable to secure an outright Q2 spot.

Friday’s fastest rider Alex Rins (Suzuki) and back-to-back Sepang race-winner Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) both opted not to hunt outright quick laps at the end of FP3 but retained top ten spots on the combined times.

With Jorge Lorenzo confirming his withdrawal from the remainder of the Malaysian MotoGP race weekend due to injury, Michele Pirro ended the session in 18^th place as Ducati stand-in following a Turn 15 crash midway through FP3.