MotoGP: Miller tops final practice in Valencia

Bagnaia earned a precious spot in Q2 but it was a nervous conclusion to FP3 for the MotoGP World Championship leader. Bagnaia was pushed back to ninth after the checkered flag came out at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo.

Fortunately for him, that was as far as he would slip, although he was only 0.064 seconds quicker than P11. Pecco’s only remaining rival for the title, Fabio Quartararo, finished the session in P5 – after a late front-end scare.

Chilly weather causes several spills

Somewhat low track temperature seemed to catch out several riders in the opening half of the session although, ironically, it was heat being generated less than two minutes in when Marco Bezzecchi (Mooney VR46 Racing Team) crashed at Turn 7 and his Ducati caught fire – thankfully, the Italian was clear of the flames.

That incident triggered a brief red flag period before a close call between Bagnaia and Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) when both ran wide at Turn 2, then separate crashes for Raul Fernandez (Tech3 KTM Factory Racing), Enea Bastianini (Gresini Racing MotoGP™), Brad Binder, Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda Idemitsu), and Maverick Viñales (Aprilia Racing).