KTM MotoGP rookie Brad Binder pinched Friday free practice top spot at Misano #2 by 0.002s from Honda’s Taka Nakagami with Fabio Quartararo in third place.

Nakagami, who has a garage full of HRC engineers in the absence of Marc Marquez, had set a 1’31.630 using a hard/soft Michelin combination to top the sheets with five minutes to go but Binder got in the tow of lap record holder Maverick Vinales and managed a 1’31.628 for bragging rights.

Former points leader Quartararo was a further 0.014s in arrears as he found a tenth of a second over his morning time. By contrast, Binder was a second faster and Nakagami half a second better.

Vinales spent the morning session working on pace with the hard tyre and his switch to the soft slick was his first run on it today, so 0.042s gap to the leader is not a bad result.

Pol Espargaro set his 1'31.699 on a soft rear slick after bouncing back from a crash at turn 13 but he managed to stay ahead of Franco Morbidelli who didn't manage to improve on his laptime from this morning.

Other non-improvers were Joan Mir and Miguel Oliveira. The Portugese rider didn't use a soft rear Michelin in the afternoon while the Suzuki man did five laps on an used soft before switching to a new medium rear at the end.

Danilo Petrucci got himself into ninth place after finding half a second in the afternoon and Johann Zarco finished in tenth despite a crash with five minutes left.

Pecco Bagnaia finished half a second off the pace in 11th with Andrea Dovioso 12th and Alex Espargaro - both of whom failed to improve their laptime - in 13th. Iker Lecuona was 14th with Valentino Rossi 15th and Jack Miller 16th.

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