Iannone heads Ducati 1-2 in practice

Pramac man Iannone hit the top of the timesheets in the dying moments of the 45-minute session, setting a quickest time of 1m34.120s to depose fellow Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso's factory bike by just three hundredths of a second.

Third quickest was Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo, just a further tenth back. He had enjoyed a spell atop the timesheets in the latter stages of the session.

Marc Marquez was best of the Honda riders in fourth, just behind Lorenzo, the championship leader seemingly prioritising long runs over single lap pace - although he was fastest for much of the first half of the session before Lorenzo beat his time by half a second.

Dani Pedrosa, who also briefly topped the times, was fifth quickest, exactly three tenths away from Iannone, with Valentino Rossi next up in sixth.

Open class pacesetter Aleix Espargaro managed to book himself an automatic Q2 slot in the final minutes, winding up seventh having spent much of the session outside of the top 10.

The Tech 3 pairing of Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro also secured their Q2 spaces with eighth and ninth places, with Alvaro Bautista the final rider to do so in 10th.

Stefan Bradl missed out on an automatic Q2 berth by less than a tenth in spite of being well inside the top 10 for the vast majority of the session.

The German will therefore have to fight his way through Q1, along with Yonny Hernandez, who had topped the times in a wet practice one on Friday, and Cal Crutchlow.

Despite the track being very busy throughout as the riders all sought to rack up as much dry running as possible, the session proved remarkably incident-free.