Submitted by Mike Lewis on
Rookie Marc Marquez set the fastest time of the weekend in FP3 with a 1’21.903 during yet another practice session marred by heavy crashes, including that of teammate Dani Pedrosa. The championship points leader crashed early in the session at Turn 1 shortly after a light rain had briefly halted practice.
Pedrosa, who was traveling at a relatively low speed, immediately grabbed his left shoulder and collarbone after the nasty highside crash. He immediately went to the mobile clinic but his condition remains unknown. Aleix Espargaro, always impressive on his Aprilia-powered CRT, came in second and Valentino Rossi placed third.
Given the combined times of the three practices, Q2 riders will be Marc Marquez, Aleix Espargaro, Dani Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi, Cal Crutchlow, Nicky Hayden, Alvaro Bautista, Bradley Smith, Andrea Dovizioso and the top two riders from Q1.
Results:
| Pos. | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff. / Prev |
| 1 | 93 | Marc MARQUEZ | Honda | 1'21.903 | |
| 2 | 41 | Aleix ESPARGARO | ART | 1'22.129 | 0.226 / 0.226 |
| 3 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | Yamaha | 1'22.306 | 0.403 / 0.177 |
| 4 | 35 | Cal CRUTCHLOW | Yamaha | 1'22.377 | 0.474 / 0.071 |
| 5 | 6 | Stefan BRADL | Honda | 1'22.389 | 0.486 / 0.012 |
| 6 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | Honda | 1'22.614 | 0.711 / 0.225 |
| 7 | 38 | Bradley SMITH | Yamaha | 1'22.758 | 0.855 / 0.144 |
| 8 | 69 | Nicky HAYDEN | Ducati | 1'22.874 | 0.971 / 0.116 |
| 9 | 29 | Andrea IANNONE | Ducati | 1'23.031 | 1.128 / 0.157 |
| 10 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | Ducati | 1'23.063 | 1.160 / 0.032 |
| 11 | 14 | Randy DE PUNIET | ART | 1'23.174 | 1.271 / 0.111 |
| 12 | 71 | Claudio CORTI | FTR Kawasaki | 1'23.426 | 1.523 / 0.252 |
| 13 | 8 | Hector BARBERA | FTR | 1'23.556 | 1.653 / 0.130 |
| 14 | 51 | Michele PIRRO | Ducati | 1'23.557 | 1.654 / 0.001 |
| 15 | 68 | Yonny HERNANDEZ | ART | 1'23.745 | 1.842 / 0.188 |
| 16 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | Ioda-Suter | 1'23.842 | 1.939 / 0.097 |
| 17 | 5 | Colin EDWARDS | FTR Kawasaki | 1'23.978 | 2.075 / 0.136 |
| 18 | 7 | Hiroshi AOYAMA | FTR | 1'24.310 | 2.407 / 0.332 |
| 19 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | ART | 1'24.555 | 2.652 / 0.245 |
| 20 | 70 | Michael LAVERTY | PBM | 1'24.606 | 2.703 / 0.051 |
| 21 | 67 | Bryan STARING | FTR Honda | 1'25.873 | 3.970 / 1.267 |
| 22 | 52 | Lukas PESEK | Ioda-Suter | 1'27.617 | 5.714 / 1.744 |
| 26 | Dani PEDROSA | Honda |
Comments
Injuries..
...with JLo injured, Dani now bruised, battered and hurt, Cal and Marquez firing themselves at the scenery quite regularly, don't rule out Rossi being near the sharp end by the end of the year...
(you heard it here first)
:O)
Pedrosa hasn't fractured his collarbone
Pedrosa hasn't fractured his collarbone, the local german paper says. But he's been taken to the hospital to perform another check and to get more x-rays, I suppose. Hope he'll be fine. And I sure do hope Jorge will get back soon. This is not how we all want a championship to be decided.
Espargaro rules
All those high-profile crashes may be taking the most attention, but man, that Aleix Espargaro on the Aprilia V4 is brilliant! Looking at this list one would guess it was on a wet track, but no... Dry track, second fastest!
Of course the tight track is a factor in his even better performance this time, but it's not like the real MotoGP bikes have a disadvantage to the CRT (or whatever we're supposed to call it) bikes. They still should be ahead of him, no excuses there.
I really hope Aprilia can hold on to Espargaro for next year to build on this. (But if I were Suzuki, I would try to trade De Puniet in... What would Aleix have done in those tests at Catalunya and Aragon?)