Ahead of the session, Aprilia announced that Lorenzo Savadori has been retired for the remainder of the British GP as he continues to struggle with the broken ankle he sustained in a violent Styrian GP crash.
The cooler conditions for FP3 at Silverstone meant the combined times were largely unchanged for the first half of the 45-minute session.
After just 25 minutes, the reigning world champion Joan Mir in 12th, Takaaki Nakagami of LCR Honda in 14th and Johann Zarco of Pramac Ducati in 15th had improved compared to their lap times on Friday.
Moments at the end of Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro made the first significant improvement when he moved up to third place overall with 1: 59.840 minutes.
A little more than 11 minutes before the end, Quartararo’s Friday benchmark was finally exceeded by Ducatis Miller.
The Australian – who was second in the overall standings after Friday – found himself in front of him with Suzuki’s Rins as a reference and drove the fastest of all with 1: 59.288 minutes.
In the final phase, the time windows were flooded with the best sector times of the session when the field fought for a direct place in Q2 qualifying.
But nobody could overturn Miller’s time, Aprilias Espargaro was his closest rival with 1: 59.386 minutes – the Spaniard was just 0.098 seconds behind him.
Aleix Espargaro, Aprilia Racing Team Gresini
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin jumped into third place late ahead of Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo.
Francesco Bagnaia completed the top 5 on the second factory Ducati ahead of Honda’s Pol Espargaro, who finished in the second quarter despite a late accident in Stowe.
Valentino Rossi felt he had to find second place in his Friday best to get into Q2 on Saturday and did just that in FP3 Marquez.
Johann Zarco will face a volatile Q1 session later that afternoon with Yamaha’s Pramac rider Cal Crutchlow – who ran up to ninth in one stage before dropping to 13th – and Rins, who was on the Farm crashed, assisted curve late on a flying lap.
KTM’s Miguel Oliveira continued to fight in FP3 at Silverstone, finishing only 19th on his factory RC16, 1.5 seconds behind the pace, while Tech3 counterpart Danilo Petrucci, 17th, suffered a mechanical defect at the end of the session.
MotoGP debutant Jake Dixon suffered his first crash in 15 minutes in FP3 when he slipped at Brooklands, with the SRT rider finishing the morning in last place.
British MotoGP – FP3 Results