Lorenzo lays down the law in FP3

Jorge Lorenzo smashes the lap record to continue his dominance at Motegi, 0.4s ahead of Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso.

Movistar Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo set the fastest ever lap by a MotoGP bike around the Twin Ring Motegi during Saturday morning's FP3, as riders tried to secure their automatic progress to Q2. Lorenzo's 1'44.089 continued his dominance from Friday and was almost three-tenths quicker than his own lap record from last year's race (1'44.350). The Spaniard clearly is not suffering any effects from his shoulder injury and finished 0.408s ahead of Ducati Team's Andrea Iannone.

Iannone has his own shoulder injury to worry about, but the Factory GP15's were flying, as his teammate Dovizioso was just a further 0.071s back in third to complete the provisional front row.

Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez (+0.682s), who is suffering from a broken bone in his left hand, was down in ninth before the usual frantic end to the session as riders tried to secure their automatic progress to Q2. The reigning MotoGP Champion swapped to the softer option tire in the dying minutes and recovered to finish in fourth overall.

Championship leader Valentino Rossi (+0.733s) improved his time from over seven-tenths from Friday to end the session in fifth ahead of Marquez's teammate Dani Pedrosa (+0.770s) in sixth.

Monster Yamaha Tech 3's Pol Espargaro finished at the leading Satellite rider in seventh despite crashing early on at turn 11, while LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow improved from 11th on Friday to end the session in eighth overall.

Bradley Smith (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) crashed at turn 7 with just three minutes to go in the session while on a flying lap. The British rider failed to improve his time from Friday, but still made it through to Q2 in ninth.

Aleix Espargaro (Team Suzuki Ecstar) completed the top ten, while Scott Redding (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) just missed out on automatic qualification to Q2 by 0.098s and had to settle for 11th. Joining the Brit in Q1 is Maverick Vinales (Team Suzuki Ecstar) who finished in 12th, and the two Pramac Ducati's of Danilo Petrucci and Yonny Hernandez in 14th and 15th respectively.

Hector Barbera (Avintia Racing) was the leading Open class rider in 13th, while American Nicky Hayden (Aspar MotoGP Team) found himself in 18th overall as the fastest Open Honda. Australian Jack Miller on the Open LCR Honda was in 21st, ahead of Hayden's teammate Eugene Laverty in 23rd.

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