Repsol Honda MotoGP rookie Marc Marquez just headed off a challenge from nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi to top the third free practice session at Laguna Seca and get within three tenths of the lap record.
The young Spaniard lapped in 1'21.568 to set the weekend's quickest lap so far and was a country mile ahead until the final laps started to come. Rossi put his work Yamaha M1 in second with a 1'21.752 after running off the track at turn six and then coming in for some setup tweaks. His time demoted Stefan Bradl's 1'21.959 to third.
Alvaro Bautista ran uncharacteristically high for much of the session and only slipped down to fourth in the last few minutes. His lap of 1'22.085 was enough to stave off Britain's Cal Crutchlow who could only muster fifth place.
Andrea Dovizioso is the leading Ducati on a 1'22.226 with Jorge Lorenzo showing spirit and turning in 23 laps the best of which was good enough for seventh place, one ahead of Nicky Hayden on the second works GP13.
Aleix Espargaro is again by far and away the fastest of the CRT men in ninth with Bradley Smith rounding out the top ten. Randy De Puniet was 11th and second CRT while Danilo Petrucci was third in the sub-class. Michael Laverty finished in 20th place.
Dani Pedrosa did not take part in this session and as a result, the Repsol Honda man did not make it into the top ten combined times so will have to take part in qualfying one later on today.
Entrants to qualifying two:
Marquez
Rossi
Bradl
Bautista
Crutchlow
Dovizioso
Lorenzo
Hayden
Espargaro
Smith