The 45-minute session was stopped with 12 minutes left on the clock when Pedrosa's works Honda machine slid into the barriers at Turn 9, and punctured the air-fence.

Such was the force of the impact that the Repsol-liveried RC213V landed on top of the tyre barrier behind the air-fence, which was repaired prior to the session being resumed a short while later.

At that point, it was the Aspar Ducati of Yonny Hernandez that had set the quickest time of 1m26.306s, but once the session was resumed, this was swiftly beaten by Vinales as the Suzuki man posted a 1m25.866s.

This proved enough for the Spaniard to take the top spot, with the works Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso the only other man to breach the 1m26s with a 1m25.945s, 0.079s off the pace.

Andrea Iannone, who topped last month's familiarisation test at the Red Bull Ring, made it two Desmosedici GPs in the top three, 0.211s slower than Vinales.

The best of the Yamaha contingent was Valentino Rossi in fourth, 0.366s behind, with Hernandez's pre-stoppage time proving good enough for fifth.

One of the only riders to miss the July test, Marc Marquez, was sixth quickest, ahead of nearest title rival Jorge Lorenzo, who languished outside of the top 10 for most of the session before a late improvement brought him to within 0.509s of Vinales' benchmark.

Completing the top 10 were Jack Miller (Marc VDS Honda), Danilo Petrucci (Pramac Ducati) and works Ducati wildcard Michele Pirro.

Besides Pedrosa - who ended up 22nd and last, over five seconds off the pace despite returning to the track on his number two bike late on - Stefan Bradl (Aprilia) and Eugene Laverty (Aspar Ducati) also suffered crashes during the session.

Bradl fell exiting Turn 3, his Aprilia RS-GP hitting an unprotected section of armco, while Laverty suffered a violent crash coming out of Turn 8 that left the Irishman shaken but unhurt.

Pos.	Driver	Bike	Time	Gap
1	Maverick Viñales	Suzuki	1'25.866
2	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1'25.945	0.079
3	Andrea Iannone	Ducati	1'26.077	0.211
4	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'26.232	0.366
5	Yonny Hernandez	Ducati	1'26.306	0.440
6	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'26.337	0.471
7	Jorge Lorenzo	Yamaha	1'26.375	0.509
8	Jack Miller	Honda	1'26.438	0.572
9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'26.493	0.627
10	Michele Pirro	Ducati	1'26.620	0.754
11	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	1'26.734	0.868
12	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'26.860	0.994
13	Pol Espargaro	Yamaha	1'26.880	1.014
14	Bradley Smith	Yamaha	1'26.995	1.129
15	Aleix Espargaro	Suzuki	1'27.067	1.201
16	Loris Baz	Ducati	1'27.997	2.131
17	Alvaro Bautista	Aprilia	1'28.229	2.363
18	Hector Barbera	Ducati	1'28.492	2.626
19	Tito Rabat	Honda	1'28.731	2.865
20	Stefan Bradl	Aprilia	1'28.761	2.895
21	Eugene Laverty	Ducati	1'30.206	4.340
22	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	1'31.293	5.427