MotoGP Indianapolis: Marc Marquez on top in third practice session

Marc Marquez topped MotoGP's third free practice session at Indianapolis, comfortably outpacing the factory Yamaha riders he is chasing in the championship

MotoGP Indianapolis: Marc Marquez on top in third practice session

The reigning world champion went fastest with his first flying lap of the session early on, and with seven minutes remaining he extended his advantage over the field to four tenths of a second.

At that point, Friday pacesetter Jorge Lorenzo was second fastest on his factory Yamaha, but by the end of the session he had been pushed down to fifth by Bradley Smith, Andrea Iannone and Dani Pedrosa.

Lorenzo's session was much more convincing than his team-mate Valentino Rossi's though, as the championship leader spent much of the session outside of the top 10 cut-off to automatically pass through to Q2 later today.

Rossi used a medium rear tyre to briefly get as high as fourth, but he was shuffled back to ninth.

While Rossi eventually made the Q2 cut, Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso was a high-profile casualty as he failed to improve on his best time from Friday and dropped to 11th in the combined classification.

Both Ducatis appeared to be in trouble in the closing stages, with Iannone's first lap of his final run only good enough for 10th (and knocking Dovizioso out of a Q2 berth), but Iannone found more time on his next effort to move up to third as the flag came out.

Yamaha-contracted Tech 3 rider Pol Espargaro suffered his second crash of the weekend in the closing minutes, falling on the approach to Turn 2 shortly after setting a time good enough for eighth by the time FP3 concluded.

FP3 TIMES:

Pos Rider Team Bike Time Gap Laps
1 Marc Marquez Honda Honda 1m32.392s - 21
2 Bradley Smith Tech 3 Yamaha 1m32.421s 0.029s 23
3 Andrea Iannone Ducati Ducati 1m32.718s 0.326s 21
4 Dani Pedrosa Honda Honda 1m32.759s 0.367s 19
5 Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha Yamaha 1m32.819s 0.427s 23
6 Cal Crutchlow LCR Honda 1m32.851s 0.459s 21
7 Aleix Espargaro Suzuki Suzuki 1m32.914s 0.522s 19
8 Pol Espargaro Tech 3 Yamaha 1m32.945s 0.553s 17
9 Valentino Rossi Yamaha Yamaha 1m32.981s 0.589s 22
10 Maverick Vinales Suzuki Suzuki 1m32.998s 0.606s 18
11 Yonny Hernandez Pramac Racing Ducati 1m33.290s 0.898s 20
12 Andrea Dovizioso Ducati Ducati 1m33.293s 0.901s 17
13 Scott Redding Marc VDS Honda 1m33.300s 0.908s 19
14 Hector Barbera Avintia Racing Ducati 1m33.503s 1.111s 20
15 Danilo Petrucci Pramac Racing Ducati 1m33.570s 1.178s 18
16 Jack Miller LCR Honda 1m34.021s 1.629s 17
17 Eugene Laverty Aspar Honda 1m34.036s 1.644s 19
18 Nicky Hayden Aspar Honda 1m34.053s 1.661s 18
19 Mike Di Meglio Avintia Racing Ducati 1m34.332s 1.940s 19
20 Alvaro Bautista Aprilia Gresini Aprilia 1m34.348s 1.956s 22
21 Stefan Bradl Aprilia Gresini Aprilia 1m34.608s 2.216s 20
22 Alex de Angelis IodaRacing Project ART/Aprilia 1m35.188s 2.796s 18
23 Toni Elias AB Motoracing Honda 1m36.412s 4.020s 16
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