Marquez sets blistering pace at Valencia

The Honda rider had bettered Jorge Lorenzo's day one benchmark by the late morning by dipping under the 1m31s barrier and went even faster in the early afternoon to end up on top in 1m30.536s.

He even survived a scary moment at Turn 6 where he lost control of his bike on corner entry, but managed to avoid an accident by riding onto the asphalt run-off on the outside of the track.

Lorenzo was 0.232s slower on his Yamaha in second, with Dani Pedrosa third on the second factory Honda after setting his best lap of the day inside the final 15 minutes of running.

Honda riders occupied the next two positions as well, with LCR's Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista's Gresini bike rounding out the top five.

British rider Bradley Smith was sixth on his Tech 3 Yamaha, with Valentino Rossi's Yamaha and Andrea Dovizioso's Ducati behind him.

New Tech 3 signing Pol Espargaro continued to gain mileage on ahead of his MotoGP debut next year and set the ninth best time, just ahead of Andrea Iannone's Pramac Ducati and Cal Crutchlow's works example.

Nicky Hayden, riding a Honda for the first time since 2008, was 13th fastest on his first appearance on the Japanese manufacturer's production racer with Aspar.

Forward Racing ran its new Yamaha-FTRs for the first time and had Colin Edwards and new signing Aleix Espargaro in action.

Briton Michael Laverty caused a red flag when he crashed his PBM Aprilia with half an hour to go while Randy de Puniet also rode for the team as he assesses his options for next year.