MotoGP World Champion-elect Marc Marquez has taken charge of the free practice timesheets at Valencia this morning, putting in a 1’30.255 to top the third session and he was pushed hard by the satellite Yamaha of Johann Zarco with Andrea Iannone’s Ecstar Suzuki in third.

In the final soft-tyre shootout, Marquez proved he has pace on both old and new soft-option Michelins, reeling off eight laps in the 1’31s before pitting for a fresh set and then upping the pace to put a quarter of a second between himself and the pack on his first lap of five in the 1’30s.

Maverick Vinales, who was a title favourite at the start of the year and won the opening two races, is languishing in 14th place and a second off the pace. The Movistar Yamaha man can’t find pace on any of Michelin’s myriad options

But he is not alone as nine-time world champion and team-mate Valentino Rossi only scraped into qualifying two by 0.006s on his final lap. The Doctor stuck in a fresh soft rear and medium front with ten minutes, popped into eighth place before changing for another new soft rear and the subsequent 1’31.037 was enough for tenth.

Zarco’s 2016 Yamaha is again proving to be the best-available M1 as the Frenchman found three 1’30s laps on his preferred soft rear while Iannone’s 1’30.501 was also set on the same compound. The Italian has solid 1’31s pace and was just able to stay ahead of Jorge Lorenzo’s works Ducati.

The former champion dropped his overall laptime to a 1’30.603 with one other lap in the 1’30s and, like Iannone, has good 1’31s pace on the soft rear. Alex Rins, on the second Ecstar GSX-RR, hauled himself into sixth place behind Dani Pedrosa - who didn’t improve - with a 1’30.846 lapping on his own.

Michele Pirro put his GP17 in seventh overall, one in front of title challenger Andrea Dovizioso who couldn’t find any extra pace this morning. The Italian was half a second slower than his time from yesterday afternoon and placed 16th in the session even on the soft rear.

Jack Miller crashed right at the top of the session but got back out to set a 1’31.031 to stay as an automatic Q2 man and one in front of Rossi, who beat Aleix Espargaro - a two-time faller this weekend - by six one-thousandths of a second.

Brother Pol put the KTM in 12th place but he will start from pitlane after changing his engine again for his tenth of the season. Cal Crutchlow again couldn’t get into Q2 and he has Vinales right behind him. Danilo Petrucci completed the top 15 with Bradley Smith in 16th.

Sam Lowes found a second overnight to climb into 19th place with Scott Redding in 22nd. The Pramac Ducati man crashed at turn ten with ten minutes left after the grip of a new medium rear overwhelmed a used hard front and pinged him into the gravel.

Click here for times