Marquez beats Iannone to top Barcelona test
MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez topped the post-Catalan Grand Prix MotoGP test day at Barcelona.
Photo by: Repsol Media
Marquez overhauled Suzuki's Andrea Iannone with four minutes left on the clock in the eight-hour session, posting a 1m38.916s – a laptime that would've been good enough for third on the grid for Sunday's race.
Iannone had overtaken the session's early leader – Avintia Ducati's Tito Rabat – around the two-hour mark.
The status quo out front remained unchanged for a long time, before Marquez – who trialled a black-liveried prototype Honda RC213V on the day - took second from Rabat with just over half an hour left to run.
The Spaniard then sped up again, beating Iannone's long-standing benchmark by 0.104s, with Rabat remaining best of the rest in third, 0.446s off the pace.
With Ducati factory riders Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso skipping the test, the Italian factory provided "new things to try" for Pramac's Danilo Petrucci.
The Italian placed fourth, but his day had come to an early end when he crashed out at the high-speed Turn 9 right-hander.
"I'm fine, just a crash, was a low-side at Turn 9, but when [I] arrived on the gravel, there is always a little step between the grass and the gravel and I started to get round, round, round.
"I started to feel very very bad with my feet, but no fracture, so that's important, even if my foot is getting bigger and bigger.
"Anyway, I'm so sorry, because it was my first test to try new things for Ducati factory and I crashed with this.
"Fortunately, I'm okay, and the majority of the test, we are done, so I'm happy because I was even quite fast."
Tech 3 Yamaha rider Johann Zarco had briefly taken the lead from Rabat early on, but was shuffled down the order, ending the day in fifth.
LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow was sixth, while Honda works rider Dani Pedrosa moved up to seventh late on.
Pedrosa's improvement relegated Suzuki's Alex Rins to eighth, 0.004s ahead of Yamaha's Maverick Vinales and 0.006s ahead of Pramac Ducati's Jack Miller.
Vinales and factory teammate Valentino Rossi ventured out on track relatively late in the eight-hour test, and spent most of it outside the top 10, with the Italian eventually settling for 14th.
A new, larger-profile front tyre was made available to riders in the test by supplier Michelin, with Iannone issuing a short verdict: "I like. Good job Michelin."
Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont
Session results
Pos. | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap | Laps |
1 | Marc Marquez | Honda | 1:38.916 | 88 | |
2 | Andrea Iannone | Suzuki | 1:39.020 | 0.104 | 37 |
3 | Tito Rabat | Ducati | 1:39.362 | 0.446 | 82 |
4 | Danilo Petrucci | Ducati | 1:39.488 | 0.572 | 41 |
5 | Johann Zarco | Yamaha | 1:39.534 | 0.618 | 72 |
6 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | 1:39.727 | 0.811 | 61 |
7 | Dani Pedrosa | Honda | 1:39.738 | 0.822 | 77 |
8 | Alex Rins | Suzuki | 1:39.793 | 0.877 | 83 |
9 | Maverick Vinales | Yamaha | 1:39.797 | 0.881 | 85 |
10 | Jack Miller | Ducati | 1:39.799 | 0.883 | 52 |
11 | Aleix Espargaro | Aprilia | 1:39.915 | 0.999 | 56 |
12 | Franco Morbidelli | Honda | 1:40.004 | 1.088 | 70 |
13 | Hafizh Syahrin | Yamaha | 1:40.108 | 1.192 | 42 |
14 | Valentino Rossi | Yamaha | 1:40.124 | 1.208 | 58 |
15 | Bradley Smith | KTM | 1:40.462 | 1.546 | 77 |
16 | Takaaki Nakagami | Honda | 1:40.541 | 1.625 | 88 |
17 | Pol Espargaro | KTM | 1:40.721 | 1.805 | 49 |
18 | Scott Redding | Ducati | 1:40.732 | 1.816 | 62 |
19 | Xavier Simeon | Ducati | 1:41.145 | 2.229 | 74 |
20 | Tom Luthi | Honda | 1:41.207 | 2.291 | 82 |
21 | Sylvain Guintoli | Suzuki | 1:41.316 | 2.400 | 62 |
22 | Mika Kallio | KTM | 1:41.976 | 3.060 | 16 |
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