Quartararo leads Aleix Espargaro in close Aragon FP3, Marc Marquez crashes again

Championship leader Fabio Quartararo topped a very close MotoGP FP3 at Aragon from Aleix Espargaro, while Repsol Honda rider Marc Marquez crashed for the second time this weekend. 

After trying both the soft and hard rear tyre on Friday, Marquez began FP3 with a new medium rear as race pace was the focus. 

Joan Mir was the early mover up the leaderboard with 11th - finished day one second from last. 

The top ten remained unchanged until 19 minutes left when Takaaki Nakagami went from ninth to first. Aleix Epsargaro also improved from his FP2 time, but remained third. 

Mir was next to set a time attack and moved up from 11th to second position, while Nakagami went even quicker by -0.077s.

After spending much of the session in 21st overall, Maverick Vinales started to improve as he went 13th fastest with 15 minutes remaining. 

The early improvements put Marquez on the bubble in tenth, before his brother Alex relegated him to 11th by going fourth. Fabio Quartararo was also moved out of the top ten, however, the Frenchman quickly produced his best time of the weekend to go second.

On his very next lap, Quartararo went two tenths quicker than Nakagami with a 1:47.046s. Francesco Bagnaia then surpassed the championship leader’s best time with a first sub 1m 47s lap of the weekend.

In typical MotoGP style, lap times were unbelievably close as Mir went top for Suzuki by just -0.002s. 

With just over a minute to go Alex Marquez became the first crasher of the session. 

But just seconds later the LCR Honda rider was joined by Marc Marquez who crashed for the second time this weekend - turn 14. 

At the front, the top three of Quartararo, A. Espargaro and Mir remained unchanged, while Bagnaia led a Ducati trio with Miller fifth and Jorge Martin sixth. 

Pol Espargaro was seventh fastest, while M. Marquez, Nakagami and Enea Bastianini rounded out the top ten.