Silverstone MotoGP: Rossi leads warm-up on damp track

With the times improving non-stop throughout the run, Rossi, who had qualified in fourth, managed to start his final lap shortly before the chequered flag and had little trouble eclipsing the benchmark of poleman Marc Marquez with a time of 2m18.660s.

And Marquez, who had led the final minutes of the run, would end up down in third, also beaten by Pramac Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci.

Rossi's teammate and joint championship leader Jorge Lorenzo was fifth, behind the session's top Briton Cal Crutchlow and just ahead of Andrea Dovizioso.

Bradley Smith, Yonny Hernandez and Andrea Iannone followed, while Pol Espargaro, who had topped the timesheets for much of the first half of the running, ended up completing the top ten.

Honda factory rider Dani Pedrosa was 11th, two seconds down on Rossi.

The incident-free session saw riders practice changing bikes in the early minutes in preparation for what is expected to be a mixed-conditions Grand Prix.