Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez went under team-mate Dani Pedrosa’s lap record in the third MotoGP free practice session at Silverstone this morning and then crashed at Village before re-mounting to only have another fast lap interrupted as he nearly collided with Jorge Lorenzo.
Marquez set a 2’01.906 on his eighth lap of 12 and then lost the front but walked away from the spill. Then, on his last fast lap of the session, he went into Abbey only to find Lorenzo’s Yamaha dawdling mid-corner and only some quick thinking avoided a potentially nasty collision. Lorenzo was oblivious to the close shave until Marquez turned around to look and immediately the two-time world champion began to wave his arms about.
Both Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi found a setup overnight which rescued them from the clutches of qualifying one. Rossi improved by a massive 1.7s over his time from free practice two and has found a cure for the chatter and lack of corner-entry speed, hopping into fourth place with a 2’02.243.
Lorenzo, meanwhile, was just a tenth slower than his team-mate and also found a chunk of time, upping his pace by 1.2s to go through to qualifying two automatically. The Yamahas were just behind Pedrosa, who is two-tenths slower than his team-mate in third.
The works Ducatis are at opposite ends of the scale with Andrea Dovizioso continuing his run of form, bagging second place with the soft tyre and only trailing Marquez by 0.034s while Cal Crutchlow is down in 15th and couldn’t find any extra pace overnight. The Isle of Man resident’s woes continue as he is 2.1s slower than Marquez.
Bradley Smith bounced into the top ten halfway through the session but was bounced out again fairly rapidly. A late lap, however, saw him claw his way back into eighth while team-mate Pol Espargaro, who was in second halfway through the session, ended in sixth, with Stefan Bradl, another crasher, in between.
Scott Redding just missed a qualifying two spot and will now have to fight it out with Pramac Ducati’s Yonny Hernandez and and Gresini team-mate Alvaro Bautista for a space in the final timed session.
Leon Camier improved by two-tenths overnight and PBM’s Michael Laverty is one place behind his fellow Brit after finding half a second.
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