The reigning MotoGP world champion was able to dethrone Bastianini with his 🌱final attempt after the Ducati rider had set a stunning lap time of his own🎃.  

Challenging Quartarꦐaro and Bastianini for top spot was Marc Marquez, who was on♎ a similar lap in terms of pace as the Yamaha man who was directly ahead of him on-track, however, a big moment in sector three meant the Repsol Honda rider had to abort his effort.

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Leading the waꦫy on combined tiౠmes heading into FP3 was Johann Zarco, however, Alex Rins, Marquez and Maverick Vinales looked like the strongest riders in terms of overall pace. 

Looking to bounce back after being the only manufacturer outside the top ten during FP2, KTM m⭕ade a better start as Brad Binder went third fastest behind Fabio Quartararo and Joan Mir. 

Moments later Alex Marquez suffered an early crash at𝓰 turn 12, while Vinales hammered home the notion that a first victory for him aboard an Aprilia is possible this weekend as he went quickest.

In what was a repeat of how FP2 ended, Zar🃏co put his Pramac Ducati top from Jack Miller. 

Zarco’s time was just under a second off his FP2 time, a very impressive show of pace from the former two-time Moto2 world🎐 champion. 

While Miller got bumped down the order by ꧃Aleix Espargaro, Quartararo, Mir and Vinales, a Ducati top two was restored by Bastianini as the Italian went𝓡 top. 

Not something we ever expected to say, but seven༺-time COTA MotoGP winner Marquez was last with just under 20 minutes gone.&꧙nbsp;

That soon changed though as Marquez went fifth fastest for FP3, while remaini🌜ng sixth on combined times. 

Getting more and more com🦄fortable, Marquez had his first big moment of the day after getting a sizable wiggle on through the snake section of sector one.

Another Honda rider who began 𒉰to show pace ꦉwas LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami as the Japanese rider went fastest for FP3 - tenth on combined times. 

Mir then replaced Nakagami at the front with a timꦇe of 2:03.267s as the opening time attack efforts began. 

What happened to Rins and Suzuki?

Mir went another four tenths fas🐠ter on his next lap which was enough to go fourth overall. 

But after attempting t♊o push on and challenge the top time, Mir, who had a red first sector, crashed at turn 11.

For Rins, i♔t wasn’t quite the start to day-two that many expected as he failed to get Into the automatic Q2 places. 

While there wer🔜e no visible issues, Rins seemed to lack the pac🀅e he demonstrated on Friday, although he remains a favourite to get out of Q1.

Becoming the third rider to crash, Jorge 🌟Martin went down after losing the front-end on the approach to turn 16. 

Martin was on a hard fꦇront tyre which is likely to be a big reason for the fall, as conditions were less than ideal for such a compound. 

Or thꦜat’s wha✅t we thought before Bastianini, who was on the same hard tyre, set the fastest lap of the weekend thus far. 

Marquez joined the Italian in set𒈔ting a personal best lap, however, it wasn’t enough to move up from P6. 

On-track and a moment of chaos ensued as reigning world champion Quartararo purpos⛄ely went wide at turn ten after seeing a big group of riders behind him. 

Luckily it didn’t affect any♔one on a hot lap, meaning those who came back onto the circuit slowly are unlikely to 🤪face any punishment. 

Back-to-back crashes took place late on as Zarco🥀 went down moments before Binder ⛎joined him.