Aragon MotoGP: Marquez takes charge in FP3, Rossi misses Q2 cut-off

Marquez was quick from the off and came within 0.037 seconds of matching Andrea Dovizioso's fastest practice time on just his fifth lap of the session.

The championship leader then switched to the hard rear tyre with 15 minutes left on the clock and strengthened his grip on first place by registering the best time of the weekend with a 1m48.123s, which remained unbeaten until the end.

The new Ducati model continued to show great pace, this time in the hands of Iannone, who finished the session 0.243s behind his Honda rival on Pramac's Desmosedici GP14.2 machine.

Tech 3's Pol Espargaro was quickest through the first sector of the circuit and was a slender 0.011s behind Iannone, while factory Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso and LCR's Stefan Bradl were just 0.040s adrift of him in fourth and fifth respectively.

Bradley Smith claimed sixth ahead of Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo, who, like Yamaha team-mate Rossi, continued to struggle for pace at Aragon.

The Misano winner was on the fringes of the top 10 for most of the session and in the final few minutes was pushed down the order by Cal Crutchlow, Aleix Espargaro and Yonny Hernandez.

Rossi was able to improve on his penultimate lap, but the nine-time champion failed to make the Q2 cut-off and will aim to go faster in the first qualifying session to progress to the pole position shootout.