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Valencia MotoGP: Petrucci fastest in practice three as Rossi crashes

Pramac Ducati's Danilo Petrucci topped the Saturday morning MotoGP practice at Valencia, as Valentino Rossi crashed and was resigned to Q1 alongside Maverick Vinales and Jorge Lorenzo

After a fully wet Friday, FP3 also kicked off on a soaked track - but with no rain falling, improving on Friday's times seemed possible.

But it started raining almost immediately and the field failed to get close to Marc Marquez's Friday benchmark of 1m39.767s for the majority of the session.

Rossi led the way early on while times were in the 1m41s region, but the Yamaha rider's progress was soon halted with a highside crash at Turn 4.

Marquez took over at the top and held a comfortable lead for a large part of the session until Petrucci edged him out by half a tenth.

Although Ducati works rider Andrea Dovizioso then set a 1m39.800s and led into the final 10 minutes, Petrucci was able to improve again in the dying stages and topped the session with a 1m39.712s.

Dovizioso and Marquez were second and third, and Jack Miller claimed fourth before suffering a crash after the chequered flag fell.

Johann Zarco was the top Yamaha in fifth, as both factory riders are outside of the top 10 and will have to take part in Q1.

Vinales missed out on the top 10 by 0.061s in 11th, as Rossi finished two places further behind.

Marquez's Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa ended up sixth, followed by an impressive Pol Espargaro in seventh for KTM.

Alex Rins and Aleix Espargaro led Suzuki's and Aprilia's efforts in eighth and ninth respectively, and Ducati wildcard Michele Pirro held on to 10th despite a late crash.

Rins fell at the end of the session, with Suzuki team-mate Andrea Iannone and Aleix Espargaro also having incidents during the practice.

Iannone ended up only 15th, as the recovering Jorge Lorenzo could only manage 17th, 1.3s off the pace.

FP3 times

Pos Rider Team Bike Time Gap Laps
1 Danilo Petrucci Pramac Ducati Ducati 1m39.712s - 20
2 Andrea Dovizioso Ducati Ducati 1m39.800s 0.088s 19
3 Marc Marquez Honda Honda 1m39.826s 0.114s 21
4 Jack Miller Pramac Ducati Ducati 1m39.912s 0.200s 15
5 Johann Zarco Tech3 Yamaha Yamaha 1m40.141s 0.429s 19
6 Dani Pedrosa Honda Honda 1m40.185s 0.473s 24
7 Pol Espargaro KTM KTM 1m40.275s 0.563s 21
8 Alex Rins Suzuki Suzuki 1m40.417s 0.705s 19
9 Aleix Espargaro Aprilia Aprilia 1m40.530s 0.818s 11
10 Michele Pirro Ducati Ducati 1m40.586s 0.874s 11
11 Maverick Vinales Yamaha Yamaha 1m40.647s 0.935s 22
12 Franco Morbidelli MVDS Honda Honda 1m40.675s 0.963s 21
13 Valentino Rossi Yamaha Yamaha 1m40.750s 1.038s 19
14 Stefan Bradl LCR Honda Honda 1m40.806s 1.094s 22
15 Andrea Iannone Suzuki Suzuki 1m40.871s 1.159s 14
16 Alvaro Bautista Aspar Ducati Ducati 1m40.900s 1.188s 20
17 Jorge Lorenzo Ducati Ducati 1m41.026s 1.314s 17
18 Scott Redding Aprilia Aprilia 1m41.357s 1.645s 17
19 Bradley Smith KTM KTM 1m41.362s 1.650s 22
20 Karel Abraham Aspar Ducati Ducati 1m41.813s 2.101s 19
21 Hafizh Syahrin Tech3 Yamaha Yamaha 1m41.832s 2.120s 19
22 Takaaki Nakagami LCR Honda Honda 1m41.992s 2.280s 23
23 Thomas Luthi MVDS Honda Honda 1m42.040s 2.328s 19
24 Jordi Torres Avintia Ducati Ducati 1m43.439s 3.727s 19

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