Thailand MotoGP: Dovizioso tops FP3, Marquez crashes

After setting the pace in Friday's second session, Dovizioso again set the pace on Saturday morning at new-for-2018 venue Buriram, leaving it late to set the best time of 1m30.399s.

Marquez had been first to beat the Italian's FP2 benchmark, with a 1m31.079s, which remained the time to beat until the final 10 minutes as Jack Miller (Pramac Ducati) leapt to the top spot with a 1m30.566s.

That time proved good enough for second only to Dovizioso, while Yamaha's Maverick Vinales led the charge against the Ducatis just a further tenth behind Miller.

As more and more riders set times with the soft rear tyre, Marquez slipped down the order, and after the reigning champion abandoned his penultimate run after running wide at the last corner, he had been bumped out of the top 10.

The Spaniard barely made it out of the pits in time for one more flying lap, crossing the start/finish line with seconds to spare, but lost the front end of his works Honda at Turn 4 and crashed.

His previous time was good enough only for 11th, 0.064s short of the automatic Q2 cut-off.

Cal Crutchlow took over the mantle as top Honda runner in fourth place, ahead of Danilo Petrucci (Pramac) and the second factory Honda of Dani Pedrosa.

Valentino Rossi was seventh on the second factory Yamaha, while the remaining top 10 spots went to Andrea Iannone (Suzuki), Johann Zarco (Tech 3 Yamaha) and Alvaro Bautista (Nieto Ducati).

Alex Rins struggled to match the pace of Suzuki stablemate Iannone, ending up down in 16th behind both KTMs and the leading Aprilia of Aleix Espargaro.

Jorge Lorenzo did not take part in FP3 after his monster crash on Friday afternoon, which left him with a hairline fracture in his left wrist. He will take no further part in the Buriram weekend.

FP3 results:

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1'30.399
2	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	1'30.566	0.167
3	25	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	1'30.647	0.248
4	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	1'30.719	0.320
5	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'30.727	0.328
6	26	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	1'30.818	0.419
7	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'30.859	0.460
8	29	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	1'30.881	0.482
9	5	Johann Zarco	Yamaha	1'30.979	0.580
10	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	1'31.015	0.616
11	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'31.079	0.680
12	21	Franco Morbidelli	Honda	1'31.117	0.718
13	38	Bradley Smith	KTM	1'31.118	0.719
14	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	1'31.169	0.770
15	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	1'31.187	0.788
16	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	1'31.209	0.810
17	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	1'31.385	0.986
18	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Yamaha	1'31.728	1.329
19	12	Thomas Luthi	Honda	1'31.816	1.417
20	10	Xavier Simeon	Ducati	1'31.867	1.468
21	45	Scott Redding	Aprilia	1'32.028	1.629
22	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	1'32.148	1.749
23	81	Jordi Torres	Ducati	1'32.272	1.873