Valencia MotoGP: Marquez brushes off crash to top warm-up

The 20-minute session was delayed by half an hour due to concerns over low track temperatures for the earlier Moto2 and Moto3 sessions in their original time slots.

Once underway, top spot changed hands frequently, with Pramac’s Jack Miller, Ducati stablemate Danilo Petrucci, Marquez, Petronas Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, Alex Rins and Maverick Vinales all taking turns at the top of the timesheets.

With 10 minutes of the session gone, Marquez fell from his Honda as he headed into the Turn 14 left, while Suzuki’s Rins had taken over at the head of the field with a 1m31.702s.

Rins improved to a 1m31.622s, which stood as the benchmark until the closing moments, when Yamaha’s Vinales fired in a 1m31.569s to edge 0.015 seconds clear of the field.

Marquez had quickly returned to the action on his second bike following his crash, and was up to second almost instantly.

A final effort of 1m31.295s from Vinales put him 0.289s out of reach and looked to cement him top spot in the session.

But Marquez dug deep on his last lap and produced a 1m31.136s to lead the final warm-up of the season ahead of Vinales.

Doubt has surrounded Petrucci’s Ducati career following this round, with rumours suggesting he could be ousted from the marque altogether to make way for Miller, while Johann Zarco could step into Pramac.

This only seemed to spur Petrucci on, though, as he ended the morning third fastest from Petronas poleman Quartararo and the latter's teammate Franco Morbidelli.

Andrea Dovizioso was sixth on the third of the four GP19s present this weekend, with Rins, Suzuki teammate Joan Mir, Miller and Pol Espargaro (KTM) completing the top 10.

Valentino Rossi was only 11th in the order having run as high as second at one stage, with the Yamaha rider beating Andrea Iannone (Aprilia), Zarco (LCR), Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and LCR’s Cal Crutchlow.

Honda’s Jorge Lorenzo was 19th ahead of his final appearance as a MotoGP rider this afternoon.

Results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	1'31.136
2	12	Maverick Viñales	Yamaha	1'31.295	0.159
3	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1'31.445	0.309
4	20	Fabio Quartararo	Yamaha	1'31.531	0.395
5	21	Franco Morbidelli	Yamaha	1'31.584	0.448
6	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1'31.607	0.471
7	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	1'31.622	0.486
8	36	Joan Mir	Suzuki	1'31.672	0.536
9	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	1'31.700	0.564
10	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	1'31.801	0.665
11	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1'31.851	0.715
12	29	Andrea Iannone	Aprilia	1'31.924	0.788
13	5	Johann Zarco	Honda	1'31.936	0.800
14	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	1'31.969	0.833
15	35	Cal Crutchlow	Honda	1'32.044	0.908
16	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	1'32.291	1.155
17	51	Michele Pirro	Ducati	1'32.392	1.256
18	82	Mika Kallio	KTM	1'32.567	1.431
19	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Honda	1'32.616	1.480
20	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	1'32.628	1.492
21	27	Iker Lecuona	KTM	1'32.811	1.675
22	55	Hafizh Syahrin	KTM	1'32.884	1.748
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