Marc Marquez remained the man to beat in Saturday morning practice for the Indianapolis MotoGP race.

The championship leader burst to the front with a 1m38.844s lap in the closing minutes, becoming the first rider to break the 1m39s barrier this weekend.

Until works Honda rider Marquez showed his hand, satellite men Stefan Bradl and Cal Crutchlow had been battling for the top spot for much of the morning. Bradl ended up second for LCR Honda, with Crutchlow’s Tech 3 Yamaha preventing another all-Honda top three by beating Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista to third.

Title contenders Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo were only fifth and sixth, followed by Valentino Rossi.

Ben Spies is currently undergoing medical checks after yet another heavy crash. The American was making his comeback this weekend having been sidelined by injuries to his right shoulder for much of the year. But a crash at Turn 4 resulted in a heavy landing on his other shoulder, leaving the American in clear pain.

His Pramac teammate Andrea Iannone put in a very strong performance and was on course for Q2 before works Ducati rider Nicky Hayden squeezed him out by 0.017sec with a last-minute lap.

Danilo Petrucci pipped Aleix Espargaro to top CRT honors in 12th.

Pos  Driver            Team/Bike            Time       Gap 1.  Marc Marquez      Honda                1m38.844s 2.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda            1m39.125s  +0.281 3.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha        1m39.441s  +0.597 4.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda        1m39.538s  +0.694 5.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                1m39.569s  +0.725 6.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha               1m39.597s  +0.753 7.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha               1m39.640s  +0.796 8.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha        1m39.765s  +0.921 9.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati               1m39.812s  +0.96810.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati               1m39.889s  +1.04511.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati        1m39.906s  +1.06212.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW       1m40.879s  +2.03513.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia        1m40.895s  +2.05114.  Ben Spies         Pramac Ducati        1m41.451s  +2.60715.  Yonny Hernandez   PBM Aprilia          1m41.707s  +2.86316.  Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki 1m41.845s  +3.00117.  Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki 1m41.853s  +3.00918.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 1m42.041s  +3.19719.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 1m42.042s  +3.19820.  Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda    1m42.375s  +3.53121.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia        1m42.583s  +3.73922.  Michael Laverty   PBM-Aprilia          1m42.647s  +3.80323.  Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW       1m42.789s  +3.94524.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Aprilia      1m43.325s  +4.48125.  Blake Young       Attack APR-Kawasaki  1m44.956s  +6.112