Lorenzo leads Rossi in final practice

Lorenzo's time of 1m55.476s was set during a late flurry of fast laps as world champion Marc Marquez initially broke the circuit record, only for Lorenzo to better it moments later and Rossi then bump the Honda rider down to third.

Marquez had been the fastest rider the majority of the 45-minute session after moving to the top of the timesheets early on, as the riders enjoyed cooler morning conditions of 38C track temperature.

In the end, Lorenzo's lap was a commanding 0.555 seconds clear of the pack.

Bradley Smith finished the session in fourth place, but the Tech 3 rider had spent most of the session out of the top 10 before he produced two laps good enough to advance directly into Q2 late on.

Ducati's Andrea Iannone managed to get within 0.444s of Marquez's then fastest time but the Italian was shuffled down to fifth place by the end of the session.

Maverick Vinales and Yonny Hernandez improved late on to be sixth and seventh ahead of Hector Barbera and the other Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso, who only made it into Q2 with the last lap of the session.

Dani Pedrosa completed the top 10, despite visibly limping as he climbed aboard his Honda as a result of his heavy accident on Friday afternoon.

Although he improved his fastest time of the weekend, the Spaniard spent much of the session circulating around a second slower than he did on Friday.

Pol and Aleix Espargaro will have to go through Q1 as they were bumped out of the top 10 inside the last minute and ended up in 11th and 12th, ahead of Cal Crutchlow.

Crutchlow found himself down in 13th, the LCR Honda rider one of the few who could not improve during the final minutes of the session.

Rossi visited the Turn 13 gravel trap with eight minutes remaining after the Yahama rider could not get his bike slowed down in time.

He was able to recover to the pits, while Jack Miller crashed the other LCR Honda at Turn 3 in the final minutes of the session.