On a rapidly drying track, that saw initial lap times just 3sec off the dry Friday practice, Jack Miller was the first to improve, climbing to 11th on the Marc VDS Honda with a time 0.6s faster than his best from Friday.

Cal Crutchlow then moved his LCR Honda up to fourth with a 2m00.853s, while Valentino Rossi slotted his Yamaha 10th overall despite using the hard rear tyre.

However, soon after Miller went to the top of the times with a 2m00.406s, Rossi took his soft-shod Yamaha into P4, then grabbed top spot with a 2m00.246s.

His former teammate Jorge Lorenzo put his Ducati on top with a 2m00.163s, before Dani Pedrosa sneaked ahead on his works Honda by a mere 0.025s, and then Johann Zarco grabbed top spot on the Tech 3 Yamaha.

That appeared to be it, but Rossi’s 18th lap was a peach and he sneaked ahead of Zarco by 0.077s, with Pedrosa only 0.063s further adrift.

Championship contender Ducati’s Andrea Dovisioso was fourth, just ahead of teammate Lorenzo, with Miller clinging on to sixth, a mere nine-thousandths of a second ahead of Crutchlow.

Andrea Iannone and Alex Rins were eigth and 12th respectively on the Suzukis, while Marc Marquez, championship leader by 33 points, was a strangely subdued ninth, 0.52s off Rossi’s pace.

That still put him ahead of Maverick Vinales’ Yamaha which was 0.75s slower than its sister bike, and made the top 10 by just 0.047s.

Former 125 and 250cc winner at Sepang, Alvaro Bautista, barely gave himself a chance to improve his P2 time from yesterday. He dropped his Aspar Ducati at Turn 1 with half an hour to go and then fell off his spare bike at Turn 10 with 22 minutes to go.

He finished last in the session but remained P11 in practice times overall.

Michael van der Mark, subbing for Jonas Folger on the second Tech 3 Yamaha this weekend, was 21st 2.037s off the pace.

Practice results:

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'59.947
2	5	Johann Zarco	Yamaha	2'00.024	0.077
3	26	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	2'00.087	0.140
4	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	2'00.124	0.177
5	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	2'00.149	0.202
6	43	Jack Miller	Honda	2'00.190	0.243
7	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	2'00.199	0.252
8	29	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	2'00.394	0.447
9	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	2'00.467	0.520
10	25	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	2'00.695	0.748
11	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	2'00.746	0.799
12	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	2'00.864	0.917
13	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	2'00.876	0.929
14	38	Bradley Smith	KTM	2'01.013	1.066
15	76	Loris Baz	Ducati	2'01.292	1.345
16	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	2'01.295	1.348
17	53	Tito Rabat	Honda	2'01.382	1.435
18	22	Sam Lowes	Aprilia	2'01.506	1.559
19	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	2'01.752	1.805
20	8	Hector Barbera	Ducati	2'01.847	1.900
21	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	2'01.984	2.037
22	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	2'02.204	2.257