Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez topped the third MotoGP free practice timesheets at Valencia this morning, going under the 1’32s barrier early doors as nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi found some pace to get to within four-tenths of the Repsol Honda man.

Marquez set his time of 1’30.950 on his tenth lap and then promptly crashed at turn five, losing the front of his RC213V but was immediately up and back to the garage. He didn’t set a faster time and is still some three-quarters of a second slower than his outright lap record.

Valentino Rossi, meanwhile, has gone some way to fixing the nervousness of his YZR-M1 with a lap of 1’31.318 which was enough for seventh in a session where the top ten was covered by just half a second.

The Doctor said yesterday he was unable to ride the bike properly and had a lot of work to do overnight but he still doesn’t look comfortable on the Movistar Yamaha and was only the third fastest Yamaha.

Fastest M1 jockey laurels went to Pol Espargaro who shot into second place with only five minutes left to run. The Monster Yamaha man set a 1’31.083 to end a tenth behind Marquez and 0.063s ahead of Jorge Lorenzo in third place.

Andrea Iannone put his soft-tyre option to good use to claim Ducati bragging rights, ending his session in fourth place and 0.011s ahead of his team-mate next year, Andrea Dovizioso.

Dani Pedrosa put in a late charge to bag sixth place, one ahead of Rossi, while the second Espargaro brother Aleix put his Open-class Forward Yamaha in eighth place. Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith rounded out the top ten and completing the automatic places for qualifying two this afternoon.

The satellite Hondas belonging to Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista will have to progress through qualifying one for a decent grid slot after finishing in 11th and 13th respectively, with Pramac Ducati’s Yonny Hernandez in 12th place.

Scott Redding ended in 21st place with Michael Laverty 23rd.

Click here for times