Today's third MotoGP free practice session was a sedate affair, with the front runners evaluating tyres for Sunday's race in mid to long runs - until the dying minutes when Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Marquez set it ablaze.
The quickest time belonged to Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa on a 1'31.309 with Valentino Rossi just behind him. Easily inside the existing race lap record but more than half a second away from Pedrosa's outright of 1'30.844.
Yamaha's Lorenzo made his final pit exit and immediately went faster with a 1'31.482 and then followed it with a 1'30.968 and then dropped his time again to a 1'30.916 which he must have thought was a job well done.
As has happened more than once this year, he was wrong. Marquez started his last run and slipped into second place with a 1'31.013 and then stormed to the top of the sheets with a 1'30.803 - the fastest ever lap of the Spanish circuit. And the crowd went wild.
The pair are easily the fastest men out there. Marquez put in a total of six laps in the 1'31s bracket before showing his outright pace while Lorenzo's consistency in the 1'31s amounted to seven. Rossi, in third and two-tenths slower than the absolute best, had four laps in the 1'31s while fifth-placed Pedrosa has five.
The rest really are that, with Cal Crutchlow only managing a single 1'31.817 lap. Neither Pedrosa nor Crutchlow went faster than yesterday while sixth-place man Alvaro Bautista did, just, but put in two 1'31s laps and Stefan Bradl did three, right at the end of the session in his last run.
Bradley Smith, Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso made up the top ten so no big names failing to make it into qualifying two. Aleix Espargaro and Andrea Iannone will be shoo-ins for the last two spots after qualifying one.
Britain's Michael Laverty didn't fare so well in the session as he was six-tenths slower than his best from yesterday with little in the way of consistent laps and a best of 1'34.737.
