MotoGP Indianapolis Saturday morning FP3: Bradl quickest

Rain stays away as Stefan Bradl goes quickest over Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo; Marc Marquez's harder option rear tire experiment fails, down in 6th spot

2014/08/08 - mgp - Round10 - Indianapolis - MotoGP - Stefan Bradl - LCR Honda - RC213V - ActionAndrew Northcott

The threat of rain stayed away from Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday morning as the MotoGP field took to the track for the FP3 session. Thus yesterday's frantic FP2 session times would be moot, as this morning's session would be the final opportunity for riders to set themselves up in the top ten practice times in order to gain automatic entrance into the QP2 qualifying session that determines the first four rows of the grid. It also allowed a few riders to experiment with possible race setups if conditions deteriorated in the afternoon FP4 practice session.

LCR Honda's Stefan Bradl managed to put forth a massive effort to come out with the quickest time in the session, with Movistar Yamaha's Valentino Rossi just 0.016 seconds behind. Jorge Lorenzo was only 0.068 seconds behind Rossi, followed by Ducati's Andrea Dovisioso just 0.161 seconds back. Monster Tech 3 Yamaha's Pol Espargaro survived a nasty scare when his knee got caught in the grass on the inside of the final turn, nearly throwing him off the bike and causing it to go into a wobble that almost resulted in disaster; he still managed to put in the sixth quickest time, ahead of Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez whose experiment with the harder option rear tire in the session didn't work out as planned, leaving the Spaniard down in an uncharacteristic sixth spot. Faring even worse was Marquez's teammate Dani Pedrosa, who continued to have setup issues that left the two-time Indy MotoGP winner languishing in ninth spot.

MotoGP Indianapolis Saturday FP3 practice results:

Pos. Rider Country Team Machine Time
1 Stefan Bradl GER LCR Honda MotoGP Honda 1:32.522
2 Valentino Rossi ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 1:32.538
3 Jorge Lorenzo SPA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 1:32.606
4 Andrea Dovisioso ITA Ducati Team Ducati 1:32.767
5 Pol Espargaro SPA Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 1:32.797
6 Marc Marquez SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 1:32.862
7 Andrea Iannone ITA Pramac Racing Ducati 1:33.015
8 Bradley Smith GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 1:33.202
9 Dani Pedrosa SPA Repsol Honda Team Honda 1:33.220
10 Aleix Espargaro SPA NGM Forward Racing Forward Yamaha 1:33.453
11 Yonny Hernandez COL Energy T.I. Pramac Racing Ducati 1:33.531
12 Alvaro Bautista SPA GO&FUN Honda Gresini Honda 1:33.676
13 Scott Redding GBR GO&FUN Honda Gresini Honda 1:33.765
14 Cal Crutchlow GBR Ducati Team Ducati 1:33.996
15 Hiroshi Aoyama JPN Drive M7 Aspar Honda 1:34.267
16 Karel Abraham CZE Cardion AB Motoracing Honda 1:34.745
17 Danilo Petrucci ITA Octo Ioda Racing Ioda/Aprilia 1:34.772
18 Hector Barbera SPA Avintia Racing FTR/Kawasaki 1:34.801
19 Mike Di Meglio FRA Avintia Racing FTR/Kawasaki 1:34.938
20 Colin Edwards USA NGM Forward Racing Forward Yamaha 1:34.994
21 Leon Camier GBR Drive M7 Aspar Honda 1:35.010
22 Michael Laverty IRL Paul Bird Motorsport ART/Aprilia 1:35.472
23 Broc Parkes AUS Paul Bird Motorsport ART/Aprilia 1:35.521