Austin MotoGP: Dani Pedrosa on top as Marc Marquez shrugs off crash

Pedrosa lapped the Texan circuit in 2m04.408s, the fastest time of the weekend so far, to beat his compatriot by almost four tenths of a second.

That was six tenths fastest than the fastest time on Friday but still one second slower than Marquez managed in the pre-season test.

Marquez had bounced back from an early crash at Turn 13 to run fastest for much of the session but Pedrosa's late improvement left him no time to reply.

Jorge Lorenzo was a further half a second back in third, moving his works Yamaha above Cal Crutchlow's satellite Tech 3 machine with his last lap of the session.

Lorenzo made the gap to the Hondas much more respectable, having been more than a second behind for much of the session. His final effort hauled him above Crutchlow right at the last minute.

Stefan Bradl was fractionally ahead of Andrea Dovizioso in fifth, while Valentino Rossi had a low-key session on the second factory Yamaha and finished seventh fastest.

Alvaro Bautista, Nicky Hayden and Ben Spies completed the top 10 and claimed the final automatic spots in the pole shootout.

Behind them, Aleix Espargaro was the lead CRT machine, beating the satellite prototype bikes of Crutchlow's Tech 3 team-mate Bradley Smith and Andrea Iannone. The rookie pair will now have to fight through Q1 to join the rest of their 'class' in final qualifying.

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 2m04.408s
 2.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 2m04.795s  + 0.387s
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                2m05.295s  + 0.887s
 4.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha         2m05.630s  + 1.222s
 5.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             2m05.908s  + 1.500s
 6.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                2m05.963s  + 1.555s
 7.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                2m06.173s  + 1.765s
 8.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         2m06.300s  + 1.892s
 9.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                2m06.622s  + 2.214s
10.  Ben Spies         Pramac Ducati         2m06.862s  + 2.454s
11.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia         2m07.149s  + 2.741s
12.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha         2m07.714s  + 3.306s
13.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati         2m07.749s  + 3.341s
14.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia         2m08.405s  + 3.997s
15.  Yonny Hernandez   PBM Aprilia           2m08.514s  + 4.106s
16.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Aprilia       2m09.249s  + 4.841s
17.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW        2m09.409s  + 5.001s
18.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m09.504s  + 5.096s
19.  Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  2m09.660s  + 5.252s
20.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  2m09.675s  + 5.267s
21.  Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki  2m09.698s  + 5.290s
22.  Michael Laverty   PBM-Aprilia           2m10.109s  + 5.701s
23.  Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda     2m11.017s  + 6.609s
24.  Blake Young       Attack APR-Kawasaki   2m11.528s  + 7.120s
25.  Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW        2m13.510s  + 9.102s
26.  Mike Barnes       GPTech BCL-Suzuki     2m16.283s  + 11.875s