By alley - Apr 18, 2015, 10:31 AM ET

MotoGP: Marquez leads the way in Argentina

Marc Marquez led his first session of the Argentina MotoGP weekend as he edged out Cal Crutchlow in Saturday morning practice at Termas de Rio Hondo.

Marquez's late 1m38.602s for Honda was the first lap that beat Aleix Espargaro's Friday benchmark on the Suzuki. LCR Honda rider Cruthlow got within 0.056 seconds of Marquez, making it the second time in a week that he had run the champion close in the crucial practice session following a similar performance at COTA last weekend.

Espargaro was only fifth fastest this time but his Friday lap kept him third on the combined sheets and comfortably among those going straight into Q2. The Ducatis of Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso claimed third and fourth.

Yamaha men Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi looked at risk of having to go through Q1 for a spell, before pulling themselves up to sixth and seventh. But their satellite counterparts Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith will both have to go into the first qualifying segment as they failed to crack the combined top 10 for Tech 3.

Espargaro only narrowly missed out, pipped by 0.014s by his 2013 Moto2 title rival Scott Redding as the Briton secured a second straight Q2 presence with Marc VDS. Both Suzukis will be in the pole shootout again, with Maverick Vinales ninth fastest behind Pramac Ducati's Danilo Petrucci.

Eugene Laverty put himself in line for a Q2 slot for a while, though the Aspar Honda rider eventually fell back to 12th between the Tech 3 pair.

While Marquez set the pace, his temporary factory Honda team-mate Hiroshi Aoyama continued to struggle on Dani Pedrosa's usual bike. The stand-in rider was only 21st fastest.

FREE PRACTICE TIMES:

Pos	Rider	Team	Bike	Time	Gap
1	Marc Marquez	Honda	Honda	1m 38.602s	-
2	Cal Crutchlow	LCR	Honda	1m 38.658s	0.056s
3	Andrea Iannone	Ducati	Ducati	1m 38.791s	0.189s
4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	Ducati	1m 38.818s	0.216s
5	Aleix Espargaro	Suzuki	Suzuki	1m 38.919s	0.317s
6	Jorge Lorenzo	Yamaha	Yamaha	1m 38.952s	0.350s
7	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	Yamaha	1m 39.019s	0.417s
8	Danilo Petrucci	Pramac Racing	Ducati	1m 39.197s	0.595s
9	Maverick Vinales	Suzuki	Suzuki	1m 39.253s	0.651s
10	Scott Redding	Marc VDS	Honda	1m 39.312s	0.710s
11	Pol Espargaro	Tech 3	Yamaha	1m 39.326s	0.724s
12	Eugene Laverty	Aspar	Honda	1m 39.362s	0.760s
13	Bradley Smith	Tech 3	Yamaha	1m 39.471s	0.869s
14	Yonny Hernandez	Pramac Racing	Ducati	1m 39.728s	1.126s
15	Nicky Hayden	Aspar	Honda	1m 39.762s	1.160s
16	Hector Barbera	Avintia Racing	Ducati	1m 39.794s	1.192s
17	Stefan Bradl	Forward Racing	Yamaha Forward/Yamaha	1m 39.812s	1.210s
18	Alvaro Bautista	Aprilia Gresini	Aprilia	1m 39.938s	1.336s
19	Jack Miller	LCR	Honda	1m 39.999s	1.397s
20	Karel Abraham	AB Motoracing	Honda	1m 40.135s	1.533s
21	Hiroshi Aoyama	Honda	Honda	1m 40.188s	1.586s
22	Mike Di Meglio	Avintia Racing	Ducati	1m 40.255s	1.653s
23	Marco Melandri	Aprilia Gresini	Aprilia	1m 40.532s	1.930s
24	Loris Baz	Forward Racing	Yamaha Forward/Yamaha	1m 40.805s	2.203s
25	Alex de Angelis	IodaRacing Project	ART/Aprilia	1m 41.565s	2.963s