Valencia MotoGP: Marquez quickest in FP3, Vinales into Q1

Honda rider Marquez took the lead early in the session and established a dominant lead with a laptime of 1m30.939s.

He had a seven-tenth gap over Andrea Iannone at the time, but as the session progressed, Johann Zarco took over as Marquez's main challenger, going as close 0.002s with five minutes to go.

Marquez then went even quicker, his 1m30.255s beating Jorge Lorenzo's Friday benchmark time.

Tech 3 Yamaha's Zarco and Suzuki man Iannone ended up in second and third with identical laptimes, as Lorenzo grabbed fourth.

Alex Rins was fifth on the second Suzuki, followed by Ducati test rider Michele Pirro and Jack Miller, who is spending his last race weekend with Marc VDS Honda.

Valentino Rossi had a low-key session and looked set to miss out on a Q2 spot until a last-minute improvement that put him eighth, ahead of Dani Pedrosa, just as the chequered flag fell.

All nine aforementioned riders booked a place in Q2 along with Andrea Dovizioso, who was only 16th in the session but eighth in the combined times on the strength of a strong Friday lap.

Vinales was only 13th in FP3, and will have to battle through Q1 along with Honda and Ducati satellite riders Cal Crutchlow and Danilo Petrucci.

The session featured five crashes, two from Tito Rabat (Marc VDS Honda) and one each for Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia), Miller, and Scott Redding (Pramac Ducati).

FP3 results

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	93	Marc Marquez*	Honda	1'30.255
2	5	Johann Zarco*	Yamaha	1'30.501	0.246
3	29	Andrea Iannone*	Suzuki	1'30.501	0.246
4	99	Jorge Lorenzo*	Ducati	1'30.603	0.348
5	42	Alex Rins*	Suzuki	1'30.846	0.591
6	51	Michele Pirro*	Ducati	1'30.883	0.628
7	43	Jack Miller*	Honda	1'31.031	0.776
8	46	Valentino Rossi*	Yamaha	1'31.037	0.782
9	26	Dani Pedrosa*	Honda	1'31.049	0.794
10	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	1'31.098	0.843
11	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	1'31.117	0.862
12	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	1'31.134	0.879
13	25	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	1'31.320	1.065
14	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'31.402	1.147
15	38	Bradley Smith	KTM	1'31.407	1.152
16	4	Andrea Dovizioso*	Ducati	1'31.460	1.205
17	53	Tito Rabat	Honda	1'31.522	1.267
18	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	1'31.593	1.338
19	22	Sam Lowes	Aprilia	1'31.595	1.340
20	36	Mika Kallio	KTM	1'31.617	1.362
21	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	1'31.704	1.449
22	8	Hector Barbera	Ducati	1'31.710	1.455
23	45	Scott Redding	Ducati	1'31.969	1.714
24	76	Loris Baz	Ducati	1'32.804	2.549
25	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	1'32.825	2.570