Barcelona MotoGP test: Marc Marquez fastest with last-minute lap

MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez topped the post-Catalan Grand Prix test day at Barcelona.

Marquez overhauled Suzuki's Andrea Iannone with four minutes left on the clock in the eight-hour session, posting a 1m38.916s - a lap time that would have been good enough for third on the grid for Sunday's race.

Iannone had overhauled 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 during the day - took second from Rabat with just over half an hour left to run.

Marquez then sped up again, beating Iannone's long-standing benchmark by 0.104 seconds, with Rabat remaining best of the rest in third, 0.446s off the pace.

With Ducati works riders Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso skipping the test, the firm provided "new things to try" for Pramac's Danilo Petrucci - who will replace Lorenzo in the factory team next year.

Petrucci 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] arrive on the gravel, there is always a little step between the grass and the gravel and I start to get round, round, round," Petrucci explained.

"I start 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 the most important thing, I crashed with this.

"Fortunately, I'm OK, and the majority of the test we have done, so I'm happy because I was even quite fast."

Tech3 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 team-mate 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 saying: "I like it. Good job, Michelin."

Test times

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Marc Marquez	Honda	Honda	1m38.916s	-	88
2	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	Suzuki	1m39.020s	0.104s	37
3	Tito Rabat	Avintia Ducati	Ducati	1m39.362s	0.446s	82
4	Danilo Petrucci	Pramac Ducati	Ducati	1m39.488s	0.572s	41
5	Johann Zarco	Tech3 Yamaha	Yamaha	1m39.534s	0.618s	72
6	Cal Crutchlow	LCR Honda	Honda	1m39.727s	0.811s	61
7	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	Honda	1m39.738s	0.822s	77
8	Alex Rins	Suzuki	Suzuki	1m39.793s	0.877s	83
9	Maverick Vinales	Yamaha	Yamaha	1m39.797s	0.881s	85
10	Jack Miller	Pramac Ducati	Ducati	1m39.799s	0.883s	52
11	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	Aprilia	1m39.915s	0.999s	56
12	Franco Morbidelli	MVDS Honda	Honda	1m40.004s	1.088s	70
13	Hafizh Syahrin	Tech3 Yamaha	Yamaha	1m40.108s	1.192s	42
14	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	Yamaha	1m40.124s	1.208s	58
15	Bradley Smith	KTM	KTM	1m40.462s	1.546s	77
16	Takaaki Nakagami	LCR Honda	Honda	1m40.541s	1.625s	88
17	Pol Espargaro	KTM	KTM	1m40.721s	1.805s	49
18	Scott Redding	Aprilia	Aprilia	1m40.732s	1.816s	62
19	Xavier Simeon	Avintia Ducati	Ducati	1m41.145s	2.229s	74
20	Thomas Luthi	MVDS Honda	Honda	1m41.207s	2.291s	82
21	Sylvain Guintoli	Suzuki	Suzuki	1m41.316s	2.400s	62
22	Mika Kallio	KTM	KTM	1m41.976s	3.060s	16