Practice report

Assen MotoGP: Marquez beats Vinales by 0.001s in FP3

Reigning MotoGP champion Marc Marquez led the way in Saturday morning's third practice session for the Dutch TT at Assen, leading Maverick Vinales by a single thousandth of a second.

Vinales' Friday benchmark of 1m33.378s didn't get beaten until the very closing stages of the 45-minute session, as riders made soft tyre runs to ensure their place in the top 10 and the automatic Q2 spots.

LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow moved to the top spot on a 1m33.347s, giving himself a two-tenths cushion over the field, before works rider Marquez - who had led the majority of the session - bettered that benchmark by 0.006s.

Yamaha's Vinales moved himself up to third on a 1m37.463s, before falling just 0.001s short of Marquez's 1m33.341s on his next lap to grab second.

Behind Crutchlow, Valentino Rossi was just 0.047s off the pace in fourth on the second of the factory Yamahas, while Suzuki's Andrea Iannone made it five riders with a tenth of the pace.

Lead Ducati rider Jorge Lorenzo was almost a further four tenths back in sixth place, but was seventh overall behind Pramac's Danilo Petrucci - who failed to better his Friday time.

Completing the top 10 overall were Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia), Alvaro Bautista (Nieto Ducati) and Andrea Dovizioso, who also qualified directly to Q2 on the strength of his Friday time.

Pol Espargaro managed to bring the KTM inside the top 10 for the session, but fell 0.056s shy of a place in Q2.

Joining the Spaniard in Q1 are a host of other big names, including Johann Zarco (Tech 3 Yamaha), Jack Miller (Pramac Ducati), Alex Rins (Suzuki) and Dani Pedrosa (Honda).

This marks the first time this season Zarco has failed to qualify directly to Q2.

In a relatively incident free-session, the only crasher was Marc VDS Honda's Franco Morbidelli, who was taken to the medical centre for checks after a high-speed off at the Ruskenhoek.

Practice results (FP3 only):

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'33.341
2	25	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	1'33.342	0.001
3	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	1'33.347	0.006
4	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'33.388	0.047
5	29	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	1'33.403	0.062
6	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	1'33.787	0.446
7	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	1'33.825	0.484
8	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	1'33.848	0.507
9	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1'33.872	0.531
10	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	1'33.915	0.574
11	5	Johann Zarco	Yamaha	1'33.939	0.598
12	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	1'33.968	0.627
13	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'33.986	0.645
14	26	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	1'34.073	0.732
15	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	1'34.151	0.810
16	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	1'34.202	0.861
17	38	Bradley Smith	KTM	1'34.624	1.283
18	45	Scott Redding	Aprilia	1'34.637	1.296
19	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	1'34.722	1.381
20	21	Franco Morbidelli	Honda	1'34.988	1.647
21	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	1'35.215	1.874
22	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Yamaha	1'35.576	2.235
23	12	Thomas Luthi	Honda	1'35.828	2.487
24	10	Xavier Simeon	Ducati	1'35.927	2.586