Overall, there were few improvements in lap time in the first half hour of FP3, with Honda’s Marc Marquez being the main mover in the early stages.
Marquez decided against a soft tire timed attack at the end of FP2 as he didn’t feel strong enough to benefit from the extra grip, which placed him 12th on Friday.
Right in FP3, Marquez jumped on a fresh soft rear tire and set the benchmark time on the single-session time table of 1: 21.097 minutes, which was good enough to jump him to fifth place in the combined order.
Marquez’s lap kept him in the lead until the final 15 minutes of FP3 when Ducati’s Jack Miller started shedding light on the timesheets.
The Australian achieved the fastest overall victory with 1: 20.526 minutes, although this was immediately threatened by Quartararo on the factory Yamaha.
Quartararo approached the historic lap record on the Sachsenring with 1: 20.348 minutes and just over 12 minutes before the end and was leading the field at this point with 0.149 seconds.
The disaster struck moments later on the other side of the Yamaha garage when Quartararo’s team-mate Vinales crashed on Turn 1. The Spaniard was on the verge of falling out of the Q2 positions in tenth.
Suzuki rider Joan Mir increased Vinales in the last four minutes with a lap that was enough for eighth place, and left the Yamaha rider in eleventh place when he returned to the track on his second bike.
Vinales was unable to recover in the final stages and was only 13th at the checkered flag, dropping him into a Q1 session that will be a volatile battle.
World champion Joan Mir missed the Q2 cut by 0.025 seconds on his Suzuki, while teammate Alex Rins only finished 14th behind Vinales and Petronas SRTs Franco Morbidelli.
Quartararo was in the lead with a time of 1: 20.348 minutes, while Miller on the Ducati was second 0.056 seconds ahead of Pramacs Johann Zarco.
Friday pacesetter Miguel Oliveira is currently the only KTM in Q2 after finishing fourth in FP3 ahead of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and Pramac rookie Jorge Martin.
Takaaki Nakagami was the leading Honda runner on his LCR RC213V in seventh place, with the last direct Q2 places sealed by Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia and the Marquez brothers – Marc led Alex in ninth and tenth place.
A late crash for Pol Espargaro – his third this weekend – left him on the other factory Honda in Q1 and 19th. The Spaniard followed KTM’s Brad Binder as he struggled to understand the Sachsenring on a MotoGP motorcycle.
Avintia’s Enea Bastianini fell 21st at the beginning of the session in turn 1, ahead of Tech3’s Iker Lecuona, with just 1.2 seconds, which covered the field of 22 drivers in FP3.