Assen MotoGP: Valentino Rossi quickest as rain spoils session
Valentino Rossi emerged fastest as poor weather at Assen resulted in a shortage of action in third MotoGP practice
Pre-session rain created tricky track conditions, leading to an uneventful first half in which riders were reluctant to explore 'The Cathedral'.
It was left to Alvaro Bautista to provide any form of entertainment as the Gresini Honda rider was the first to go out on slicks with 15 minutes of the session remaining.
His aim was to try to improve on his Thursday best time of 1m34.466s by 0.007 seconds to gain automatic promotion to Q2, but the medium compound rear tyre was clearly not suited to the mixed conditions and the best he could manage was 1m34.912s.
Rossi managed to beat that time by 0.262s during a late flurry of activity in the final few minutes of the session, but no further gains were made by any of the riders and Aleix Espargaro continued to lead the combined timesheet ahead of Marc Marquez.
Pos Rider Team/Bike Time Gap Laps 1. Valentino Rossi Yamaha 1m34.650s 11 2. Alvaro Bautista Gresini Honda 1m34.912s +0.262s 12 3. Andrea Dovizioso Ducati 1m35.213s +0.563s 6 4. Stefan Bradl LCR Honda 1m35.532s +0.882s 5 5. Bradley Smith Tech 3 Yamaha 1m35.715s +1.065s 6 6. Karel Abraham Cardion Honda 1m36.670s +2.020s 8 7. Nicky Hayden Aspar Honda 1m36.957s +2.307s 9 8. Scott Redding Gresini Honda 1m37.251s +2.601s 10 9. Yonny Hernandez Pramac Ducati 1m37.330s +2.680s 11 10. Cal Crutchlow Ducati 1m37.754s +3.104s 6 11. Mike di Meglio Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 1m38.130s +3.480s 7 12. Broc Parkes PBM Aprilia 1m38.365s +3.715s 7 13. Hiroshi Aoyama Aspar Honda 1m38.786s +4.136s 8 14. Hector Barbera Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 1m39.404s +4.754s 12 15. Andrea Iannone Pramac Ducati 1m39.820s +5.170s 6 16. Michael Laverty PBM Aprilia 1m40.897s +6.247s 6 17. Colin Edwards Forward Yamaha 1m49.292s +14.642s 9 18. Aleix Espargaro Forward Yamaha 1m52.577s +17.927s 5 19. Pol Espargaro Tech 3 Yamaha 1m54.425s +19.775s 5 20. Danilo Petrucci Ioda Aprilia 0 21. Dani Pedrosa Honda 0 22. Marc Marquez Honda 0 23. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 0
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