A sombre mood hung in the air before riders in the Moto2™ World Championship went out for Free Practice 3. The session was extended to a full hour after the incident involving Luis Salom on Friday, riders given more time as the track layout had been revised. Alterations were made to Turn 10 and a chicane added ahead of the final corner, the World Championship using the same configuration as F1.
Riders headed out on track acquaint themselves with the new layout, the final sector now much tighter. Alex Rins (Paginas Amarillas HP 40) set a 1’49.579 to end top of the session. His time stands as the current record, the previous times wiped away due to the changes to the track.
Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) had looked set to end the session as the fastest rider until Rins’ final assault. The French rider still set a respectable 1’49.601 to end only 0.022s behind Rins.
Championship leader Sam Lowes (Federal Oil Gresini Moto2) concluded the extended session in third by over 0.7s back on the leading two.
0.018s back on Lowes was Takaaki Nakagami (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) who continues to look like a podium challenger. Franco Morbidelli suffered a fall at Turn 3; his team working frantically to fix his bike and get him back out with 20 minutes to go. He ended fifth.
Sandro Cortese (Dynavolt Intact GP) suffered his third fall of the weekend, coming off at the new Turn 15. He was unharmed.
Jeskon Raffin (Sports-Millions-EMWE-SAG), Salom’s teammate, has chosen to withdraw from the remainder of the weekend.
Qualifying for the intermediate class will begin at 15:05 Local Time and last for 45 minutes.
Complete times from the one hour session are available here.