MotoGP: Marquez still on top despite crash

Marc Marquez topped the third free practice session for MotoGP's Valencian Grand Prix, leading Pol Espargaro and Jorge Lorenzo.

The Honda rider, who was fastest in both of Friday's practice sessions, spent basically all of the 45 minutes on top of the timesheet, cementing top spot, and a place in Q2, with a 1m30.950s - the first time of the weekend under 1m31s. But it wasn't a perfect session for Marquez; shortly after setting his best time the world champion fell at Turn 5, and had to switch to his second bike.

Pol Espargaro did his best to hunt Marquez down in the last 10 minutes, but could only manage a best of 1m31.083s, 0.133 seconds shy of Marquez's time. Lorenzo, meanwhile, spent most of the session in the middle of the top 10, before going second eight minutes from time. He ultimately wound up third, despite improving to a 1m31.146s late in the session.

Andrea Iannone was best of the Ducatis with the fourth fastest time, ahead of Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi. It took a late improvement from Rossi to sneak into Q2, the Italian having sat outside the top 10 for all except the last five minutes of the session.

Aleix Espargaro was eighth fastest, while Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith rounded out the top 10.

Despite setting a time just 0.549s slower than Marquez, Stefan Bradl missed out on a Q2 spot, the German finishing the session 11th.