Jerez MotoGP qualifying
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Espargaro - the Aprilia one - was up on Dovizioso's time after two sectors but looks to have made a mistake. He's fifth at halfway point, but looking very quick, considering the tyres.
And Rabat looks to be following Vinales on track, much to the Yamaha man's chagrin.
Maverick Vinales has now put a lap together but it's only good enough for P3 - two tenths off Dovizioso and 0.002s off Tito Rabat.
That's more like it - Andrea Dovizioso goes top on a 1m38.402s. Aleix Espargaro up to second, some six tenths off, and not running a soft rear strangely enough.
Stopwatch
The first laps are on the board - Pol Espargaro goes top with a 1m39.389s. They can surely go a lot quicker than that.
Green flag
Q1 has kicked off.
Information
Q1 roster: Dovizioso, Vinales, A Espargaro, Rabat, P Espargaro, Nakagami, Morbidelli, Redding, Kallio, Abraham, Smith, Luthi, Bautista, Simeon, Syahrin.
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Checkered flag
Chequered flags out in FP4. Andrea Iannone quickest from Alex Rins and Marc Marquez, the latter crashing midway through the session.
Rather awful session for all Yamahas, including Zarco this time, although Vinales did at least move up to ninth place in the final minutes.
Rather awful session for all Yamahas, including Zarco this time, although Vinales did at least move up to ninth place in the final minutes.
Not that that means they're shoo-ins to advance. Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro was very, very close to the top 10 as well, while his brother Pol has shown glimmers of superb pace on the KTM, and Avintia Ducati's Tito Rabat is looking a dark horse for Q2, too.
Before we get to the pole shoot-out, there's Q1 to deal with, and it'll feature two very big names. Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso, the championship leader, and Yamaha's Maverick Vinales both only just missed out on an automatic bye in FP3.
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So, uhm, describing Suzuki's form here as "decent" might have been an understatement. It's a Suzuki 1-2 in the FP4 race pace simulations right now, and pace-setter Andrea Iannone is some four tenths up on the best of the rest Marc Marquez.
Marc Marquez's Jerez record is actually not as strong as teammate's Dani Pedrosa, but any suggestion it's a bad track for the reigning champ is rubbish. One win in six in MotoGP, sure, but also six podiums in six.
Autosport
Zarco, of course, has just signed on the dotted line on a 2019-20 KTM deal, as has Pol Espargaro. And the flurry of KTM announcements this week didn't end there, with the Austrian manufacturer confirming this morning that Moto2 ace Miguel Oliveira will have a Tech 3 KTM MotoGP bike at his disposal next year. 
In case you missed the practice action yesterday and today, the lowdown from this weekend so far is that the Hondas are very good, the Suzukis are decent, the Ducatis are okay and the factory-spec Yamahas are a major disappointment, especially compared to the '16 Tech 3 bike of Johann Zarco.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the fourth qualifying session of the 2018 MotoGP season, taking place at the newly-renamed and recently repaved Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto, which hosts the series' Spanish Grand Prix.
By: Matt Beer
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