Marquez leads final 2014 MotoGP test

Marc Marquez set the pace on the third and final day of MotoGP's post-season test at Valencia on Wednesday.

The double champion was one of the first to break the three-hour silence at midday after the riders were reluctant to take to the damp track following Tuesday's downpour, and his early benchmark of 1m31.667s remained unbeaten until mid-afternoon.

Jorge Lorenzo was the first to beat that time, before Marquez's Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa went quicker still and stayed atop the time sheets until the final 20 minutes of the session when Marquez set the fastest time of the week.

His 1m30.973s on the 2015-spec Honda RC213V was a miniscule 0.002 seconds quicker than what Lorenzo achieved on Monday and he finished the day 0.146s ahead of Pedrosa, who failed to improve as the final official test session of 2014 drew to a conclusion.

Lorenzo was 0.045sec behind his fellow countryman in third having put next year's Yamaha M1 through its paces, while Tech 3's Pol Espargaro was fourth and ahead of 2014 runner-up Valentino Rossi.

Bradley Smith claimed sixth, while Danilo Petrucci - who was fastest in the wet on Tuesday - came within 0.692sec of the ultimate pace after what has been a positive trio of days on the Pramac Ducati GP14.

LCR Honda new boy Cal Crutchlow set his best time with five minutes of the session remaining to go eighth and was the meat in a Pramac sandwich as Yonny Hernandez was ninth.

Rounding off the top 10 and finishing exactly one second behind Marquez was Aleix Espargaro, who showed impressive pace on Suzuki's GSX-RR.

Avintia's Hector Barbera had the most productive day with 84 laps under his belt. He was 11th fastest and ahead of Ducati test rider Michele Pirro, who spent most of the day analysing a new swingarm on the Desmosedici GP14.2.

Elsewhere, Nicky Hayden rode his new Honda RC213V-RS to 13th, Scott Redding put the Marc VDS Honda in 14th and Forward Racing's Stefan Bradl, whose progress was halted in the afternoon after a spill, finished 15th.

Moto3 runner-up Jack Miller and Gresini returnee Marco Melandri propped up the order in 21st and 22nd respectively.