MotoGP Austin, Free Practice 4: Marquez takes the final free practice session as his own

The fourth MotoGP free practice session in Austin (theatre of Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas), second stage of the 2013 world championship, saw Marc Marquez, Honda's Spanish rookie, excel. The 2012 Moto2 champion, after the bad fall in FP3, returned to the top with a time of 2:03.779, in a session that precedes Q1 and which has no value from the point of view of the starting grid, but certainly has value from the point of view of performance from a Q2 and race perspective.

The Team Repsol driver, who continues to drive in a spectacular and at the same time profitable manner, preceded his team-mate Dani Pedrosa, who had been the fastest in FP3, by just over half a second, approaching the time recorded in the tests one month ago.

Third time for the reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory rider. The Majorcan who pays almost a second from Marquez precedes another Yamaha, the SAT of Cal Crutchlow's Team Tech 3 and the Honda of Stefan Bradl's Team LCR.

Good sixth place for Andrea Dovizioso, 121 thousandths ahead of Valentino Rossi, who also in this round was unable to come close to the time set by his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo. The Pesaro native is 1.900 from Marquez and about a second from the Majorcan.

Closing out the Top Ten are Alvaro Bautista on the Honda RC213V of Team Gresini and the Ducatis of Nicky Hayden and Andrea Iannone. The best CRTs are those of Aleix Espargarò and Randy de Puniet, in eleventh and twelfth position and ahead of Ben Spies. Now the Q1 for the two places available to access Q2, where the pole will be contested.