It’s unclear what happened in the accident, but Martin was on an out lap when he hit the ground at Turn 7 and was thrown violently through the gravel.
He was taken to the medical center for inspection and declared unconscious, but had to be carried off the track.
Although most were on medium rubber at the beginning of the FP3, several improvements over the combined ordering came immediately.
KTM’s Miguel Oliveira – unsatisfied with the front tire split this weekend – found tenth in his best time in FP2, ninth before jumping up to ninth, while Petronas SRT’s Franco Morbidelli was ninth ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro advanced.
Morbidelli got into a small scratch with Takaaki Nakagami at the beginning of third FP3, the Italian had slight contact with the LCR driver at Turn 11 in Portimao after catching him on the racing line.
Nakagami had to go to the medical center in the middle of FP3 for pain reliever injections in the shoulder that he had injured in his terrible high-speed crash at turn 1 in FP2, but returned to action in the closing stages.
The world championship leader Johann Zarco set the pace in the individual times after 10 minutes with 1: 40.008s and thus finished second overall.
This was the best time of the morning until Espargaro on the Aprilia beat Francesco Bagnaia’s fastest time on Friday with 1: 39.690s and 20 minutes to go on a fresh soft slick.
Espargaro’s reign was ended by Jack Miller on the factory Ducati, who was clear seven minutes later with 1: 39.345 when the rest of the field took to the track to begin his search for a direct Q2 spot.
Quartararo widened the field with his first attack lap in the closing stages after spending much of FP3 working on the speed of the used tires with the medium compound.
The Yamaha rider’s first attempt on soft tires, barely 10 minutes before the end, brought him to the top of the pile with a time of 1: 39.044 minutes.
Morbidelli shortened the lead of his former teammate to just 0.051 seconds before the session was interrupted at 4:11 seconds after a serious fall for Pramac rookie Martin.
When the session started again at 10:48 a.m. local time, almost the entire field left the pit lane together to secure a place in the second quarter.
Quartararo’s time of 1: 39.044 minutes remained unchallenged in the end, with the Frenchman Morbidelli leading and improving late in Bagnaia.
Zarco jumped to fourth place late on his Pramac Ducati ahead of Suzuki’s Alex Rins, with Jack Miller ensuring that both factory Ducati riders got straight into Q2.
Avintia rookie Luca Marini will make his first Q2 appearance in MotoGP after finishing FP3 with an impressive seventh place ahead of Aleix Espargaro, Oliveira and Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales.
A late fall at Turn 3 for Alex Marquez prevented him from advancing into Q2, leaving the Spaniard 11th and in a volatile Q1 group.
World champion Joan Mir was only able to achieve 12th place on his Suzuki ahead of Honda’s Pol Espargaro, SRT’s Valentino Rossi and the returning Marc Marquez on the sister company Honda.
Marquez made a mistake on his penultimate flying lap and couldn’t improve on his last attempt, placing him in Q1.
Qualifying begins at 2:10 p.m. local time.
No comments:
Post a Comment