Marquez and Dovizioso lead warm-up, Zarco falls
Having narrowly missed out on pole the day before, Marc Marquez made no secret of his race day intentions in Sunday morning’s MotoGP warm-up session at Le Mans, the Spaniard posting an ominous run ahead of setting the fastest time.
Marquez was close to half a second (0.452s) clear of title contender Andrea Dovizioso in the 20-minute session, which saw home hero and pole sitter Johann Zarco crash out mid-way through after colliding with Thomas Luthi at turn eight.
Having narrowly missed out on pole the day before, Marc Marquez made no secret of his race day intentions in Sunday morning’s MotoGP warm-up session at Le Mans, the Spaniard posting an ominous run ahead of setting the fastest time.
Marquez was close to half a second (0.452s) clear of title contender Andrea Dovizioso in the 20-minute session, which saw home hero and pole sitter Johann Zarco crash out mid-way through after colliding with Thomas Luthi at turn eight.
Here's the incident between Luthi and @JohannZarco1 at Turn 8 #FrenchGP pic.twitter.com/mXv0qHEnRC
— MotoGP (@MotoGP) May 20, 2018
Zarco would go on to post the tenth fastest time, 1.1s off Marquez’s best that was set on his final lap of the session. Behind Dovizioso, Suzuki’s Andrea Iannone backed up his fourth place on the grid with the third quickest time.
Jack Miller was fourth, ahead of Valentino Rossi (fifth), Dani Pedrosa (sixth), Danilo Petrucci (seventh) and Aleix Espargaro (eighth), while Maverick Viñales could only manage the ninth quickest time even though track temperatures hovered just above 20 degrees Celsius – conditions that, in theory, should suit the Movistar Yamaha M1.
A heroic Cal Crutchlow took the eleventh fastest time despite spending the night in a local hospital after a bruising qualifying crash yesterday. The Englishman completed eleven laps through the 20 minutes and, remarkably, was just 1.1s off Marquez’s best.
