Marc Marquez clocks lap record to go fastest in Thai MotoGP practice

Marc Marquez topped the timesheets in practice Friday for the Thailand MotoGP with a lap record, as championship rivals Jorge Martin came second and Francesco Bagnaia fourth.

The six-time world champion from Spain clocked a blistering time of 1min 29.165sec on his Ducati at a sweltering Buriram circuit.

Gresini's Marquez, a two-time winner at Buriram and victorious in last week's grand prix in Australia, pipped Ducati Pramac's Martin by 0.110sec.

"I’m happy because starting the weekend that way is always important," said the 31-year-old Marquez, who is still just about in the title fight with three race weekends left.

Third was Enea Bastianini and Italian two-time defending world champion Bagnaia was fourth, also on a Ducati.

Spain's Martin is just 20 points clear of Bagnaia in the world championship title race. Marquez is third, but 79 points adrift of Martin.

Combining the sprint race and the main race at Buriram, a maximum 37 points are up for grabs this weekend.

"In the first part of the season I was always struggling on the Friday, and there were a lot of ways to improve over the weekend," said Marquez.

"Now on Friday I’m already on a good pace. Tomorrow it will be difficult to improve the lap time -- it's already a track record."

Rounding out the top 10 in afternoon practice were Maverick Vinales, Franco Morbidelli, Pedro Acosta, Alex Marquez, Marco Bezzecchi and Johann Zarco.

They all progressed straight through to Saturday's second qualifying, which shapes the first four rows of the grid for Saturday's sprint race and Sunday's main event.

The penultimate race weekend of the season is in Malaysia next weekend, ahead of the final leg in Valencia in mid-November.

pst/ssy