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Phillip Island MotoGP: Marc Marquez tops FP3 despite crash

Championship leader Marc Marquez topped MotoGP FP3 at Phillip Island by a dominant margin but also suffered a late crash

That incident meant he was unable to take advantage as a racing line started to emerge, although Marquez still ended up beating Johann Zarco.

Marquez set a best time of 1min38.522s on his ninth of 12 completed laps but hit the deck when his front wheel slipped out from under him at Turn 6.

At the time of the crash he was leading the session by an impressive 0.834-seconds, but a late improvement from Zarco meant the Tech3 rider vaulted up the order and got within half a second of the top.

Earlier, Zarco had led the session but crashed coming out of downhill right-hand Turn 10 before getting back to the pits and grabbing his spare bike to turn his fastest times.

Andrea Iannone crashed his Suzuki on the exit of Turn 4, but is safely through to Q2, as no rider's best lap time came close to eclipsing the quickest efforts from the dry FP2 session yesterday.

Late in the session, Ducati's Jorge Lorenzo had a fast shunt on Turn 8 when he clipped the inside curb with his front wheel and lost grip on the paint.

He will have to go through Q1 in qualifying having not been fast enough in the dry yesterday.

The same applies to Valentino Rossi, who edged his works Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales - who is through to Q2 - to 12th place in the Saturday morning session.

Late improvements on the drying track from KTM's Pol Espargaro and Aspar Ducati rider Karel Abraham meant they jumped to third and fourth fastest, but while Espargaro is through to Q2, Abraham is not.

Neither is Danilo Petrucci, despite him playing his usual starring role in the wet and clocking fifth in the FP3 standings.

Dani Pedrosa on the second works Honda, Cal Crutchlow on the LCR Honda machine and Andrea Dovizioso were P6 through P8 in FP3, and are already into Q2.

Local boy Jack Miller is another in Q2 but also fast in the wet, and he finished FP3 in 10th.

Aleix Espargaro completed the fewest laps - just seven - and wound up 23rd and last, but his fastest time from yesterday has booked him his place in Q2.

FP3 results

Pos Rider Team Bike Gap Laps
1 Marc Marquez Honda Honda 1m38.522s 12
2 Johann Zarco Tech3 Yamaha Yamaha 0.461s 17
3 Pol Espargaro KTM KTM 0.534s 16
4 Karel Abraham Aspar Ducati Ducati 0.690s 17
5 Danilo Petrucci Pramac Ducati Ducati 0.834s 11
6 Dani Pedrosa Honda Honda 1.034s 15
7 Cal Crutchlow LCR Honda Honda 1.182s 12
8 Andrea Dovizioso Ducati Ducati 1.238s 13
9 Hector Barbera Avintia Ducati Ducati 1.280s 14
10 Jack Miller MVDS Honda Honda 1.367s 11
11 Jorge Lorenzo Ducati Ducati 1.434s 13
12 Valentino Rossi Yamaha Yamaha 1.487s 13
13 Maverick Vinales Yamaha Yamaha 1.600s 12
14 Bradley Smith KTM KTM 1.640s 8
15 Sam Lowes Aprilia Aprilia 1.682s 11
16 Alvaro Bautista Aspar Ducati Ducati 2.279s 24
17 Loris Baz Avintia Ducati Ducati 2.357s 17
18 Scott Redding Pramac Ducati Ducati 2.745s 15
19 Alex Rins Suzuki Suzuki 2.898s 14
20 Broc Parkes Tech3 Yamaha Yamaha 3.296s 17
21 Tito Rabat MVDS Honda Honda 3.300s 19
22 Andrea Iannone Suzuki Suzuki 3.364s 10
23 Aleix Espargaro Aprilia Aprilia 4.893s 7



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