Petronas Yamaha’s Franco Morbidelli fended off a late charge from Frenchman Johann Zarco to claim top spot on the MotoGP free practice three timesheets at Brno.
Morbidelli used a hard/soft Michelin combination to set a 1’56.037 which was four-tenths faster than the pack for chunk of the session.
Zarco, using the Desmosedici GP19, had the same tyre combination for his final effort and set a 1’56.053 to end just 0.016s off the pace in a session that saw the top 11 covered by just three tenths.
Fabio Quartararo put some more work into his hard tyre race setup before switching to the soft and setting a 1'56.134 to end in third and still less than a tenth off the pace.
He had KTM's Pol Espargaro for company on his final flier and the Spaniard threw two new rear softs for a 1'56.140 and fourth place.
Veteran Valentino Rossi yesterday struggled to get any meaningful grip out of the soft rear but some overnight work saw the 41-year-old set a 1'56.150 after laying some ground work with the medium.
Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro hitched a ride with Quartararo on his fastest lap to bring the RS-GP20 into an automatic qualifying two spot, finishing in sixth place with a 1'56.183.
Suzuki's Joan Mir ended in seventh after being as high as second in the session while Cal Crutchlow hauled himself into Q2 with his last lap with a hard/soft combo.
Maverick Vinales is out of position in ninth place on a 1'56.282 while Danilo Petrucci is the final Q2 man and on a works Ducati that is some way down on Zarco's GP19.
Petrucci's team-mate Andrea Dovizoso missed Q2 again and has some real competition in Q1 as he is up against Alex Rins, Taka Nakagami, Jack Miller and Brad Binder.
Miguel Oliveira could also be in the mix as he crashed at the end of a lap that was destined to put him firmly inside the top ten.
