Marquez ends Valencia test on top as crashes continue

Having ended Tuesday's session quickest, Marquez first hit the top of the timesheets early in the second hour with a 1m32.126s aboard next year's Honda RC213V, but was soon demoted down the order first by LCR rider Cal Crutchlow and then the sister Repsol machine of Dani Pedrosa.

Suzuki's Maverick Vinales and newly-crowned champion Jorge Lorenzo broke the Honda monopoly, the factory Yamaha man being the first rider to dip beneath Marquez's Tuesday benchmark with a 1m31.527s.

Pedrosa then returned to the fore as the seven-hour session hit the halfway mark, lowering the bar to a 1m31.180s, a time that was beaten by a slender 0.017s by Vinales at the tail end of the fifth hour.

Shortly after that however, Marquez seized back the top spot with the quickest time of the test, a 1m31.060s, which would remain unbeaten for the remainder, putting the two-time champion on top from Vinales and Pedrosa.

Aleix Espargaro made it two Suzukis in the top four ahead of Lorenzo, who finished just over two tenths shy of Marquez and two places ahead of Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi in seventh.

A last-minute effort from Crutchlow moved him ahead of the seven-time champion by just 0.004s into sixth, with Pol Espargaro (Tech 3 Yamaha) and Andrea Iannone (Ducati) setting identical times just behind Rossi.

The second satellite Yamaha of Bradley Smith grabbed the final top 10 spot in the dying stages, pushing out Pramac Ducati's Danilo Petrucci.

Having already crashed once during Tuesday's session, Marquez was once again the highest-profile casualty of the new Michelin tyres, suffering a low-side fall at Turn 8 shortly before setting his quickest time of the day.

Joining Marquez on a long list of fallers throughout the day included Vinales, Crutchlow, Pol Espargaro, Iannone, Loris Baz (Avintia Ducati), Jack Miller (Marc VDS Honda), Eugene Laverty (Aspar Ducati) and both Aprilia riders Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl.

Although teams are permitted to continue private testing until the end of this month, the next official test session will not take place until the start of February at Sepang.

Testing times:

Pos	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'31.060		42
2	Maverick Vinales	Suzuki	1'31.163	0.103	57
3	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	1'31.180	0.120	60
4	Aleix Espargaro	Suzuki	1'31.212	0.152	55
5	Jorge Lorenzo	Yamaha	1'31.282	0.222	48
6	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	1'31.494	0.434	58
7	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'31.498	0.438	65
8	Pol Espargaro	Yamaha	1'31.619	0.559	51
9	Andrea Iannone	Ducati	1'31.619	0.559	60
10	Bradley Smith	Yamaha	1'31.694	0.634	71
11	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'31.717	0.657	62
12	Loris Baz	Ducati	1'31.796	0.736	49
13	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'31.901	0.841	54
14	Hector Barbera	Ducati	1'31.937	0.877	62
15	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1'31.967	0.907	62
16	Jack Miller	Honda	1'32.100	1.040	49
17	Eugene Laverty	Ducati	1'32.377	1.317	51
18	Esteve Rabat	Honda	1'32.402	1.342	56
19	Stefan Bradl	Aprilia	1'32.492	1.432	59
20	Yonny Hernandez	Ducati	1'32.510	1.450	48
21	Alvaro Bautista	Aprilia	1'32.847	1.787	52
22	Michele Pirro	Ducati	1'33.568	2.508	6
23	Takuya Tsuda	Suzuki	1'33.797	2.737	32
24	Mike Di Meglio	Aprilia	1'34.372	3.312	21
25	Nobuatsu Aoki	Suzuki	1'37.031	5.971	13