Marc Marquez fastest as clouds gather in Austrian MotoGP warm-up

Marc Marquez helped put yesterday’s Sprint mistake behind him by leading an overcast warm-up on Sunday morning at the Austrian MotoGP.

While the majority of riders selected medium front and soft rear tyres for the Sprint, Michelin predicts all riders should choose medium front and rear for the grand prix… assuming it’s dry.

As such, most riders used the medium rear in the ten-minute warm-up, with Marquez topping the session courtesy of a 1m 29.363s on his 4th of 7 laps.

That put the Gresini rider - who crashed from a safe second in the Sprint - 0.162s ahead of future factory Ducati team-mate Francesco Bagnaia, winner of the Sprint and chasing his third Red Bull Ring GP victory in a row this afternoon.

Alex Marquez, who joined his brother on the Saturday DNF list, was third fastest this morning, also on soft front-medium rear tyres.

Franco Morbidelli was the top Pramac rider in fourth, with mediums front and rear, while team-mate, pole qualifier and joint title leader Jorge Martin was only 21st.

However, Martin, whose left-hand wound hampered his start in the Sprint before a long lap penalty for straight-lining the chicane, was using a very worn medium rear tyre that had done 27 laps, effectively a full grand prix distance.

To put that into context, all the riders ahead of Martin fitted a new rear tyre for warm-up.

"I think we can match Pecco," said Martin, second on Saturday and 1.333s from Marquez's fastest lap this morning.

Martin, Bagnaia and Marquez will again form this afternoon's front row.

Jack Miller (fifth on Saturday) and team-mate Brad Binder were an evenly matched fifth and sixth for KTM with factory Aprilia riders Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales likewise seventh and eighth.

Espargaro completed the podium on Saturday but knows it’ll be hard to break Ducati’s podium dominance this afternoon - Desmosedicis having filled the podium for the past seven GPs in a row.

But the weather could yet play a role, with a big storm soaking the circuit on Saturday evening and cloudy skies overhead this morning.

A lot of riders tried bike swaps in warm-up due to the risk of rain, with rookie Pedro Acosta clipping his second bike during his stop.