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:
