Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez rocketed to the top of this morning's third MotoGP free practice session at Catalunya, using Bridgestone's soft rear to set a lap of 1'41.853 in a tight session where half a second covered the top eight.
The young Spaniard spent a lot of the period at the wrong end of the top ten, using the harder option tyre to work on race pace but as soon as the soft tyres came out of the warmers, he went to a 1'41.906 and then 1'41.853 which was less than a tenth faster than Nicky Hayden on the works Ducati, who also put the softer slicks to good use for second.
Dani Pedrosa also put the soft rear in to bag third place with a 1'41.987 and keep Yamahas out of the top three with Valentino Rossi in fourth on a 1'42.009, just over a tenth off the pace with Monster Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow fifth, two-tenths in arrears but set on only his third lap of 19.
Reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo had an uncharacteristic crash early in the session, losing the front of his works Yamaha at Seat and finishing the session in sixth, a tenth down on Crutchlow.
Stefan Bradl, Andrea Dovizioso and Alvaro Bautista were next along and Aleix Espargaro is putting the new Aprilia engine in his Aspar CRT bike to good use, rounding out the top ten and is the last if the automatic qualifying two men.
Bradley Smith, Michele Pirro and Andrea Iannone finished behind the Spaniard and will be involved in the scrap for the last two places in qualifying two, as will Espargaro's team-mate Randy De Puniet, who is half a second slower on his version of the Power Electronics-sponsored bike.
PBM's Michael Laverty once again upped his pace but the gap the front stretched fractionally as Marquez went appreciably quicker. He went round in 1'45.136 and finished 19th.
