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Valencia MotoGP testing: Marc Marquez leads final day for Honda

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 timesheets until the final 20 minutes of the session when Marquez set the fastest time of the week.

His 1m30.973s on the 2014-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 0.045s 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 0.692s 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.

Pos  Rider            Team/Bike        Time       Gap     Laps
 1.  Marc Marquez     Honda            1m30.973s           68      
 2.  Dani Pedrosa     Honda            1m31.119s  +0.146s  57    
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo    Yamaha           1m31.164s  +0.191s  64    
 4.  Pol Espargaro    Tech 3 Yamaha    1m31.288s  +0.315s  53    
 5.  Valentino Rossi  Yamaha           1m31.301s  +0.328s  68    
 6.  Bradley Smith    Tech 3 Yamaha    1m31.365s  +0.392s  53    
 7.  Danilo Petrucci  Pramac Ducati    1m31.665s  +0.692s  66    
 8.  Cal Crutchlow    LCR Honda        1m31.774s  +0.801s  53    
 9.  Yonny Hernandez  Pramac Ducati    1m31.914s  +0.941s  52    
10.  Aleix Espargaro  Suzuki           1m31.973s  +1.000s  41    
11.  Hector Barbera   Avintia Ducati   1m32.007s  +1.034s  84    
12.  Michele Pirro    Ducati           1m32.113s  +1.140s  68    
13.  Nicky Hayden     Aspar Honda      1m32.173s  +1.200s  53    
14.  Scott Redding    Marc VDS Honda   1m32.621s  +1.648s  64    
15.  Stefan Bradl     Forward Yamaha   1m32.784s  +1.811s  38    
16.  Alvaro Bautista  Gresini Aprilia  1m32.810s  +1.837s  68    
17.  Mike di Meglio   Avintia Ducati   1m30.922s  +1.949s  70    
18.  Maverick Vinales Suzuki           1m33.216s  +2.243s  60    
19.  Loris Baz        Forward Yamaha   1m33.486s  +2.513s  60    
20.  Eugene Laverty   Aspar Honda      1m33.509s  +2.536s  62    
21.  Jack Miller      LCR Honda        1m33.746s  +2.773s  61    
22.  Marco Melandri   Gresini Aprilia  1m34.336s  +3.363s  56    

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