At mid-morning, all eyes are on Jorge Lorenzo's Yamaha which, although world champion and winner in Qatar, yesterday suffered a surprising setback, having to settle for only 14th position due to dust. on the track not allowing the Mallorcan driver to use his usual speed when going through curves.
With a completely dry track, and that the Moto3 have just demonstrated faster than yesterday, they therefore have 45 minutes to enter the Top 10 and thus avoid going through Q2.
We will also note today the arrival of Michele Pirro to replace Danilo Petrucci.
Best lap of the circuit: 1'37.683 by Marc Marquez in 2014
FP3 2015: 1'38.602 by Marc Marquez
Combined J1 2016: 1'41.579 by Marc Marquez
Yesterday, although plagued by grip problems at the front, Jorge Lorenzo paradoxically did not use his wings, unlike the Ducati and the Repsol Honda. This morning, his Yamaha is equipped with the biggest models, like in Qatar.
The session begins with Jack Miller who suffers the 8th MotoGP crash of the weekend then, quickly, the panorama of this Argentine Grand Prix changes appearance with times which improve greatly (Marquez achieves 1'40.801 in Hard front and Medium rear) but above all official Yamahas who are positioned 2nd and 3rd at the end of the first run, separated by only 3 thousandths of a second! The turnaround is beautiful, even if Marc Marquez maintains an advantage of 4 tenths for the moment.
The second run begins with an increase in this gap, which the Honda driver brings to 6 tenths by clocking a 1'40.529. It was then Maverick Vinales and Dani Pedrosa who responded by being faster than the Yamaha riders. But nothing helps, Marc Marquez does the forcing, and gets back to safety with a 1'40.368 before the final race.
At this moment, the ranking is as follows: Marquez, Vinales, Pedrosa, Lorenzo, Rossi, Iannone Dovizioso, Barbera, Crutchlow, Aleix Espargaro and Loris Baz. We observe that if the official Yamahas have been able to raise the bar, this is not yet the case for the motorcycles of Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro.
The last minutes saw Lorenzo put on new tires at the front and rear to place himself in second position, just 2 hundredths behind Marc Marquez, just after the latter ended up falling at turn #1 after forcing a visibly reluctant Honda. This is the second twist of the session! The Honda rider runs to take his second bike in case Lorenzo improves again, but that is ultimately not the case.
Iannone is a lucky third, ahead of Maverick Vinales, Hector Barbera and Dani Pedrosa. A little further on, we find Valentino Rossi 10th, while the two Tech3 drivers will have to go through Q1, just like Loris Baz.
| Pos | number | Pile | Country | Team | Motorcycle | Km / h | Temps | difference 1st/Prev. |
| 1 | 93 | Marc Márquez | SPA & WELLNESS | Repsol Honda Team | Honda | 318.9 | 1'40.368 | |
| 2 | 99 | Jorge Lorenzo | SPA & WELLNESS | Yamaha Motor Racing | Yamaha | 322.6 | 1'40.392 | 0.024 / 0.024 |
| 3 | 29 | Andrea Iannone | ITA | Ducati Team | Ducati | 330.0 | 1'40.741 | 0.373 / 0.349 |
| 4 | 8 | Hector BARBERA | SPA & WELLNESS | Avintia Racing | Ducati | 320.7 | 1'40.766 | 0.398 / 0.025 |
| 5 | 25 | Maverick VIÑALES | SPA & WELLNESS | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | Suzuki | 323.2 | 1'40.796 | 0.428 / 0.030 |
| 6 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | SPA & WELLNESS | Repsol Honda Team | Honda | 320.5 | 1'40.807 | 0.439 / 0.011 |
| 7 | 41 | Aleix Espargaro | SPA & WELLNESS | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | Suzuki | 319.0 | 1'40.893 | 0.525 / 0.086 |
| 8 | 35 | Cal Crutchlow | GBR | Honda LCR | Honda | 319.7 | 1'40.929 | 0.561 / 0.036 |
| 9 | 4 | Andrea Dovizioso | ITA | Ducati Team | Ducati | 328.2 | 1'41.040 | 0.672 / 0.111 |
| 10 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | ITA | Yamaha Motor Racing | Yamaha | 322.2 | 1'41.101 | 0.733 / 0.061 |
| 11 | 43 | Jack Miller | AUS | Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS | Honda | 317.8 | 1'41.145 | 0.777 / 0.044 |
| 12 | 44 | Pol Espargaró | SPA & WELLNESS | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | Yamaha | 320.8 | 1'41.171 | 0.803 / 0.026 |
| 13 | 38 | Bradley SMITH | GBR | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | Yamaha | 321.9 | 1'41.246 | 0.878 / 0.075 |
| 14 | 76 | Loris BAZ | FRA | Avintia Racing | Ducati | 318.0 | 1'41.359 | 0.991 / 0.113 |
| 15 | 51 | Michael PIRRO | ITA | OCTO Yakhnich bow | Ducati | 321.3 | 1'41.379 | 1.011 / 0.020 |
| 16 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | SPA & WELLNESS | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | Aprilia | 317.5 | 1'41.679 | 1.311 / 0.300 |
| 17 | 45 | Scott REDDING | GBR | OCTO Yakhnich bow | Ducati | 321.7 | 1'41.726 | 1.358 / 0.047 |
| 18 | 53 | Tito RABAT | SPA & WELLNESS | Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS | Honda | 318.4 | 1'41.798 | 1.430 / 0.072 |
| 19 | 6 | Stefan BRADL | GER | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | Aprilia | 313.5 | 1'41.909 | 1.541 / 0.111 |
| 20 | 68 | Yonny HERNANDEZ | COL | Aspar Team MotoGP | Ducati | 320.9 | 1'41.924 | 1.556 / 0.015 |
| 21 | 50 | Eugene LAVERTY | IRL | Aspar Team MotoGP | Ducati | 322.5 | 1'42.106 | 1.738 / 0.182 |
