Gresini Honda's Alvaro Bautista topped the timesheets in this morning's third free practice session at Assen on a drying track which saw Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez suffer a massive highside but walk away with just a small fracture of his right little finger and a broken toe which will not require an operation and will ride this afternoon.
The Spanish youngster was the first rider to go out on slick tyres as the Dutch track dried out. He completed one lap and then as he started to get the hammer down, he tipped in to the fast left Ramshoek - one corner on from the scene of Jorge Lorenzo's accident - and was spat over the highside.
It didn't look like he hit a wet patch on the track but fell foul of a closed-throttle highside as he was flung off while tipping in. The bike followed him along the track, red-hot carbon disc resting nicely on his backside but Marquez got up immediately, clearly furious with himself, and returned to the garage.
Bautista and Aspar's Randy de Puniet were both also on slicks and scrapped it out for the top spot with the prototype rider beating the CRT man by two tenths. Michele Pirro was third but five seconds in arrears.
Times from yesterday's opening free practice session will make up the entrants to qualifying one which means Bradley Smith gets through automatically but the Ducatis of Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso will have to go into qualifying one.
