Rossi tops Brno FP3, Vinales misses Q2 spot

Rossi was in danger of having to take part in Q1 in qualifying as he was only 11th when the chequered flag came out, but he responded with a 1m55.175s to end up first with a last-gasp effort.

At the beginning of FP3, Marc Marquez quickly beat Dani Pedrosa's Friday benchmark with a 1m55.637s, with Cal Crutchlow slotting into second.

The Honda duo locked out the top two for most of the session, but Marquez was demoted with 11 minutes remaining when Crutchlow went faster by 0.02s, before Danilo Petrucci improved the top spot time with a 1m55.369s.

Petrucci led for four minutes before his factory Ducati counterpart Jorge Lorenzo moved ahead by 0.041s, but the Pramac rider fought back during the final minute of the session.

But he still had to settle for second thanks to Rossi's final lap, with Lorenzo also improving during the dying stages but staying third, ahead of Marquez.

Andrea Iannone was fifth in an otherwise disappointing session for Suzuki, as Alex Rins and wildcard Sylvain Guintoli were only 17th and 24th respectively.

Pedrosa and Crutchlow ended up sixth and seventh, with the latter ending the session with a crash at Turn 3.

Johann Zarco took eighth, while Avintia Ducati's Tito Rabat was ninth and Andrea Dovizioso only just made it in to Q2 automatically as the works Ducati rider finished 10th.

Vinales was best of the rest in 11th, missing out on the top 10 by 0.055s, and he was followed by Aleix Espargaro.

Takaaki Nakagami crashed at T7 and finished 23rd, while Hafizh Syahrin, who spent most of the session inside the top 10, fell at T13 and ended up only 16th.

Honda wildcard Stefan Bradl was 20th, 1.5s off the pace.