2017 Misano Moto2 FP3 Result: No Match For Morbidelli

After Hafizh Syahrin was given his time in the sun, Franco Morbidelli was back out showing why he is leading the championship and taking charge of the session. The Italian posted the first and only 1:37 time of the weekend in his first handful of laps, while most of the grid was struggling to match their Friday times throughout the session.

Behind him, the Malaysian rider is starting to overwrite his moniker as wet weather expert by progressing significantly in distinctly dry conditions, Syahrin ending the session second and third on combined standings.

Tom Luthi was another two tenths of a second behind in third, sneaking ahead of Simone Corsi in the final few minutes. Dominique Aegerter was fifth fastest and with a steady pace that had a sniff of podium aspirations, despite failing to improve on his Friday benchmark.

Augusto Fernandez had a fantastic start to his morning, the Spaniard casually joining the top five early in the session and dropping to sixth after some late improvers snuck in. Takaaki Nakagami was one of the few who gave it a go at the end of the session to jump into a top position but the Japanese rider dropped to seventh place after his fastest time was cancelled. Mattia Pasini took a forced break mid-session by sampling the gravel trap at turn two and finished eight, another rider who could not improve on his FP2 performance.

Stefano Manzi and Iker Lecuona were other unusual additions to the top ten throughout the session, the Italian finishing ninth, with the Spaniard eleventh, despite a late crash. Between the two of them, Fabio Quartararo completed the top ten, six tenths down on the leader.

It wasn’t the greatest of Saturday mornings for Luca Marini in seventeenth, but nowhere near as bad as Miguel Oliveira and Pecco Bagnaia’s, the Portuguese rider leading the Italian outside of the top twenty.

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