Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo topped the third MotoGP free practice session at Jerez this morning, edging out Pol Espargaro and Cal Crutchlow with one second covering the top 14 riders.
Lorenzo hadn’t improved his laptime since the fifth lap yesterday morning but on the final run, he charged to the top of the sheets with a 1’38.493 which is running down Marc Marquez’ 1’38.120 pole time from last year.
Espargaro, on the Monster Yamaha, ran him close with a 1’38.547 while Britain’s Cal Crutchlow abandoned his last effort while on course for the fastest lap of the session. The CWM LCR man settled for third place and ended just 0.028s behind the man who replaced him at Tech3.
Aleix Espargaro, on the factory Suzuki, used the medium tyre instead of the soft to set his time of 1’38.653 which was good enough for fourth place and bodes well for not only a fast qualifying lap but also race pace on Sunday.
Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso deposed Valentino Rossi from fifth place with his last lap. Using the medium tyre, he posted a 1’38.728 which was 0.039s quicker than The Doctor, who switched to the medium tyre after spending yesterday afternoon trying to make the hard work.
Crocked reigning champion Marc Marquez seemed content with seventh place and is showing no signs of sever pain from his broken finger, removing his left glove quickly and smartly at session end.
Andrea Iannone hauled himself into an automatic qualifying two slot with his last lap of 1’38.876, just head of Bradley Smith who jumped up from 15th into the top ten with only minutes to spare. Scott Redding was the last of the automatic qualifying two men but he had Maverick Vinales and Danilo Petrucci on his heels.
Eugene Laverty crashed unhurt in the early part of the session, losing the front at turn five but bounced back to set his personal best of the weekend for 19th place.
