Bagnaia quickest for Ducati in FP3, Marquez 21st

Despite its favourite status at Mugello this weekend, FP3 got off to a fairly disastrous start for the Italian manufacturer.  

In the early stages Gresini rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio ran off into the Turn 1 gravel at the same time VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi did, with the latter crashing. 

At the same time factory Ducati rider Jack Miller was forced to stop at Turn 8 with a technical issue, while teammate Bagnaia crashed at Turn 12 not long after – the Italian’s GP22 smashing its way to land on top of the tyre barrier.  

Pramac’s Jorge Martin would also have a crash with just under half an hour of the 45-minute session remaining.  

Improvements on the combined order were few and far between for much of FP3, with no headline moves inside the all-important top 10 spots pivotal to securing a direct Q2 qualifying place coming until the final 15 minutes.  

Miller was the first rider to go for a soft tyre time attack around halfway through the session, but couldn’t hook a lap together as he continually lost time through the third sector.  

Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales would be the first rider to make a significant improvement, as he went to third with a 1m46.121s with just under 20 minutes remaining.  

Suzuki’s Joan Mir moved into the top 10 moments later, which shoved championship leader Fabio Quartararo out of the Q2 places briefly.  

Though he would get back up to ninth after his first soft tyre run, a big mistake going through Turn 8 in the latter stages left the Yamaha rider visibly frustrated having felt on Friday that his form was completely “opposite” to how it was in 2021 when he won at Mugello.  

While this was happening, Bagnaia was lighting up the timing screens and produced a 1m45.393s with 11 minutes to go to move almost half a second clear of the field on the combined times.  

That lap would see him safely through into Q2 and kept him top of the pile ahead of Friday pacesetter Aleix Espargaro, who improved to a 1m45.669s on his…