South Africa’s Brad Binder clocked the fastest time in practice for the Japan MotoGP on Friday, with championship leader Jorge Martin finishing third.
Red Bull KTM rider Binder laid down a fastest lap of 1min 43.436sec at a cloudy Motegi, 0.033 ahead of Spain’s six-time world champion Marc Marquez in second.
Spaniard Martin, who holds a 21-point lead over nearest rival Francesco Bagnaia in the overall standings with five races remaining, was 0.132 off Binder’s pace.
Italy’s Bagnaia, the defending world champion, finished seventh fastest, 0.318 out of the lead.
Pramac rider Martin is looking to win his first MotoGP championship after finishing second behind Ducati’s Bagnaia last year.
Italy’s Enea Bastianini, who is third in the overall championship standings, crashed midway through the hour-long session but returned to clock the fifth-fastest qualifying time, 0.169 behind Binder.
Martin looked like he had done enough to top the time sheets until Binder edged him with just minutes remaining.
Marquez made an even later tilt at first place but fell just short.
Pedro Acosta, Maverick Vinales, Alex Marquez, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Marco Bezzecchi also secured their places in the top 10.
Bagnaia topped a morning free practice session that was heavily interrupted by rain, finishing ahead of Martin.
The top 10 fastest riders in practice book their tickets for Saturday’s second qualifying session, which shapes the first four rows of the grid.
This group are then joined by the two fastest riders from the first qualifying session.
Qualifying shapes the grid for both the sprint race on Saturday and the main event GP on Sunday afternoon, with a maximum of 37 points available.
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