Fabio Quartararo saves his best till last in dramatic FP3 at Austin

The reigning MotoGP world champion was able to dethrone Bastianini with his final attempt after the Ducati rider had set a stunning lap time of his own.  

Challenging Quartararo and Bastianini for top spot was Marc Marquez, who was on a similar lap in terms of pace as the Yamaha man who was directly ahead of him on-track, however, a big moment in sector three meant the Repsol Honda rider had to abort his effort.

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Leading the way on combined times heading into FP3 was Johann Zarco, however, Alex Rins, Marquez and Maverick Vinales looked like the strongest riders in terms of overall pace. 

Looking to bounce back after being the only manufacturer outside the top ten during FP2, KTM made a better start as Brad Binder went third fastest behind Fabio Quartararo and Joan Mir. 

Moments later Alex Marquez suffered an early crash at turn 12, while Vinales hammered home the notion that a first victory for him aboard an Aprilia is possible this weekend as he went quickest.

In what was a repeat of how FP2 ended, Zarco put his Pramac Ducati top from Jack Miller. 

Zarco’s time was just under a second off his FP2 time, a very impressive show of pace from the former two-time Moto2 world champion. 

While Miller got bumped down the order by Aleix Espargaro, Quartararo, Mir and Vinales, a Ducati top two was restored by Bastianini as the Italian went top. 

Not something we ever expected to say, but seven-time COTA MotoGP winner Marquez was last with just under 20 minutes gone. 

That soon changed though as Marquez went fifth fastest for FP3, while remaining sixth on combined times. 

Getting more and more comfortable, Marquez had his first big moment of the day after getting a sizable wiggle on through the snake section of sector one.

Another Honda rider who began to show pace was LCR’s Takaaki Nakagami as the Japanese rider went fastest for FP3 - tenth on combined times. 

Mir then replaced Nakagami at the front with a time of 2:03.267s as the opening time attack efforts began. 

What happened to Rins and Suzuki?

Mir went another four tenths faster on his next lap which was enough to go fourth overall. 

But after attempting to push on and challenge the top time, Mir, who had a red first sector, crashed at turn 11.

For Rins, it wasn’t quite the start to day-two that many expected as he failed to get Into the automatic Q2 places. 

While there were no visible issues, Rins seemed to lack the pace he demonstrated on Friday, although he remains a favourite to get out of Q1.

Becoming the third rider to crash, Jorge Martin went down after losing the front-end on the approach to turn 16. 

Martin was on a hard front tyre which is likely to be a big reason for the fall, as conditions were less than ideal for such a compound. 

Or that’s what we thought before Bastianini, who was on the same hard tyre, set the fastest lap of the weekend thus far. 

Marquez joined the Italian in setting a personal best lap, however, it wasn’t enough to move up from P6. 

On-track and a moment of chaos ensued as reigning world champion Quartararo purposely went wide at turn ten after seeing a big group of riders behind him. 

Luckily it didn’t affect anyone on a hot lap, meaning those who came back onto the circuit slowly are unlikely to face any punishment. 

Back-to-back crashes took place late on as Zarco went down moments before Binder joined him.