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Spa WEC, Jerez MotoGP

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MotoGP - Jerez: Rossi is improving a little on his second bike, while Lorenzo is back out and doing likewise in the early sectors.
WEC - Spa: Hartley's lead over Lieb is up to 3.5s after five laps. Tincknell has just taken his drive-through.
MotoGP - Jerez: Rossi has copied the tactic Marquez began last year of hopping onto his second bike mid-way through qualifying. Lorenzo is sticking with his main bike.

Marquez improved his sectors on his second flying lap but remains 0.077s off Lorenzo.
WTCC - Hungaroring: That's not good news for Honda, which has pitched up in Hungary with a revised aero package. A senior engineer with one of the rival teams has opined to AUTOSPORT that Honda has been 'creative' in its interpretation of the aero rules at the front, particularly around the horizontal split line defined by the regulations. But the FIA technical delegate is satisfied that the Civic is in compliance.

Team boss Alessandro Mariani confirms that the kerb was wet, helping Tarquini off.
MotoGP - Jerez: Order after first runs:

1 Lorenzo
2 P Espargaro
3 Marquez
4 Iannone
5 Crutchlow
6 A Espargaro
7 Rossi
8 Dovizioso
9 Smith
10 Petrucci
11 Redding
12 Hernandez
MotoGP - Jerez: Marquez goes third with his first lap, between Pol Espargaro and Iannone.
WEC - Spa: Tincknell has been given a drive-through penalty for jumping the start, as has Sorensen in the Aston Martin.
MotoGP - Jerez: Pol Espargaro, who's been flying this weekend, goes second, just 0.042s off Lorenzo.

Elder brother Aleix puts the Suzuki a provisional fifth, pushing Rossi back another place.
MotoGP - Jerez: Lorenzo got himself out of the pitlane first and sets a benchmark straightaway with a 1m38.497s.

Rossi follows him over the line and is already six tenths slower.

Iannone and Crutchlow then demote Rossi to fourth.
WEC - Spa: Tandy got back past the Fassler Audi and is fighting a rear-guard action to hang onto third.

Tincknell leads LMP2 in the Jota Gibson, while Mucke is in frong in GTE Pro for Aston Martin.
WTCC - Hungaroring: Replays show Tarquini taking a little kerb, losing the rear and then nosing in to the barrier on the inside.
MotoGP - Jerez: Q2 begins, 15 minutes to sort pole between the leading contenders. Even though you can win a MotoGP race from pretty much anywhere on the grid (cool, isn't it?), that won't stop this quarter of an hour being epic.
WTCC - Hungaroring: Red flag! Gabriele Tarquini has spun at Turn 3 and deranged the nose of his Honda.
WEC - Spa: Hartley leads by 1.5s at the end of the opening lap. Fassler is up to third, having nipped past Tandy at the Bus Stop at the end of the opening lap.
WTCC - Hungaroring: They're off! Just Hugo Valente and Tom Chilton to leave pitlane.
WEC - Spa: Hartley converts pole into the race lead, but Marc Lieb is up from third on the grid and has demoted Nick Tandy.
WEC - Spa: The cars are completing their second formation lap — Brendon Hartley is leading the way in the #17 Porsche.
WTCC - Hungaroring: The good news for Sebastien Loeb fans is that his car has been repaired after his shunt on his first flying lap this morning. Unfortunately the team is €500 lighter, having been fined for closing the garage door while effecting those repairs.

Sebastien Loeb, Citroen, crash, Hungaroring WTCC 2015

Sebastien Loeb, Citroen, crash, Hungaroring WTCC 2015



In other peculiar rule-breach news, Tom Coronel was investigated by the stewards for "Car allegedly not angle-parked in formation in the Pit Lane" in FP2. That would be a breach of Article 105h of the WTCC Sporting Regulations. He's been exonerated following a review of video footage.

The two Campos Chevrolet drivers, Hugo Valente and John Filippi, will both take five-place grid drops for ignoring yellow flags in FP1, and Filippi has had an official reprimand for crossing the white line at the pit exit. Lada's Mikhail Kozlovskiy will start from the back of the grid after an engine and turbo change before the event.

To conclude a busy round of stewarding, Rickard Rydell and his team have been cleared to skip the event on the grounds of medical force majeure.
MotoGP - Jerez: So the back half of tomorrow's grid will look like this:

13 Barbera
14 Vinales
15 Bautista
16 Aoyama
17 Laverty
18 Hayden
19 Bradl
20 Abraham
21 Baz
22 Miller
23 di Meglio
24 de Angelis
25 Melandri

And our Q2 contenders are:

Lorenzo, Rossi, Marquez, Dovizioso, Iannone, A Espargaro, P Espargaro, Smith, Petrucci, Hernandez, Redding, Crutchlow
MotoGP - Jerez: A very frustrated Vinales is slapping himself around on his slowing-down lap as the flag comes out with Petrucci and Hernandez getting the Q2 spots.
MotoGP - Jerez: Petrucci raises the bar with a 1m39.250s to go three tenths clear, then Barbera grabs second.

He doesn't stay there long before Hernandez makes it a Pramac one-two.

Vinales makes a mistake at the final corner on his latest lap and is now fourth between Barbera and Bautista.
MotoGP - Jerez: Very fast laps coming in from Petrucci and Hernandez on the Pramac Ducatis now.
MotoGP - Jerez: Stunning lap from Alvaro Bautista - he's just put the Gresini-run Aprilia third in Q1, just 0.009s shy of pinching a provisional Q2 spot from Vinales.
WTCC - Hungaroring: Qualifying begins in just a few moments and the drying track will give the teams and drivers something to ponder. They have only run properly in wet conditions thus far, since the usual Friday test session was commuted to a shakedown behind the safety car because several drivers were involved in a street demonstration in the city centre.

Hungary WTCC parade

Hungary WTCC parade

MotoGP - Jerez: As predicted, Q1 is between Petrucci, Vinales and Hernandez so far - they're split by precisely 0.1s.

Hector Barbera is on their tail, with Eugene Laverty and Bradl next up.
WEC - Spa: Timo Bernhard is racing with a special helmet here at Spa that celebrates the life and career of the late Stefan Bellof, who died at this track 30 years ago.

"The Rothmans Porsches were the first cars I remember as a kid and Stefan was one of my idols, so that's why I wanted to do this," said Bernhard.

Timo Bernhard's Stefan Bellof helmet

Timo Bernhard's Stefan Bellof helmet

WTCC - Hungaroring: The rain has finally abated here in Hungary after a thoroughly wet morning. GP2 refugee Racu Regalia has just prevailed over former Williams and Jaguar Formula 1 driver Antonio Pizzonia in the AutoGP support race, pressuring Pizzonia into making an error with two laps to go. Just nine cars took the start, but some entertaining action in the midfield made up for the thin grid.
Jerez - MotoGP: Q1 has begun. The top 10 quickest riders in combined practice times go straight through to Q2.

This session for everyone else decides which two riders join them, and sets the grid from 13th back.
WEC - Spa: The KCMG ORECA coupe, which qualified second in LMP2 yesterday, has had its times disallowed after failing post-qualifying scrutineering. The front skid block failed the deflection test.

Because this cannot be rectified for the race, the car, which is shared by Nicolas Lapierre, Richard Bradley and Matt Howson, has been given a 30-second penalty and will start from the pitlane.

KCMG, Spa WEC 2015

KCMG, Spa WEC 2015

MotoGP - Jerez: That's not an amusing a practice start as the one that occurred at the end of Moto3 practice.

Young Italian rookie Stefano Manzi couldn't quite get stopped in time in the practice start area, bumped into the back of Miguel Oliveira and tumbled slowly over the front of his own handlebars.

Oliveira looked pretty nonplussed.

The big news from Moto3, though, was that teenage sensation Fabio Quartararo - a man tipped for a very, very big future after his back-to-back titles in the highly-competitive Spanish CEV Moto3 series - took his first grand prix pole on only his fourth appearance.
WEC - Spa: The cars are lined-up echelon-style, tails against the pitwall, for the pre-grid. The three Porsches at the front are all in black-and-white, but if they repeat the trick at Le Mans next month, they'll each be a different colour. Read our qualifying report here.
MotoGP - Jerez: Lorenzo has just tried a practice start that proved very ropey indeed. He's berating himself a bit for that sluggish/wheelie-ing effort. Second attempt is better.
MotoGP - Jerez: Andrea Iannone has just topped practice four, ahead of the so-far unstoppable Jorge Lorenzo.

Here's the result:

1 Iannone
2 Lorenzo
3 Dovizioso
4 Marquez
5 Crutchlow
6 Petrucci
7 P Espargaro
8 Rossi
9 Vinales
10 A Espargaro

The one to watch there is Danilo Petrucci - he and Pramac team-mate Yonny Hernandez, plus Suzuki's Maverick Vinales, are the main contenders to get out of the upcoming Q1 session and reach Q2.
MotoGP - Jerez: Huge attention on Marc Marquez's left little finger this weekend after it was broken when a friend ran him over in a motocross crash last Saturday.

Marquez has just given the injury another test by crashing in the free practice four session that precedes qualifying. He's OK and back out on bike number two now.

Marc Marquez

Marc Marquez

Hello and welcome to AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live and our coverage of a bumper weekend of international motorsport.

Coming up in the next few hours today (all times UK):

13.10: Jerez MotoGP qualifying
13.30: Spa 6 Hours WEC race
13.30: Hungaroring WTCC qualifying
13.45: Hockenheim DTM race one
All afternoon: Hockenheim World Rallycross heats
18.00: Talladega NASCAR qualifying

By: Matt Beer, Gary Watkins, Stuart Codling, Mitchell Adam, Edd Straw

Published: