Nakagami heads Marquez on final test day of 2018

LCR rider Takaaki Nakagami topped the final day of MotoGP testing of 2018 at Jerez, edging out Honda stablemate Marc Marquez by just 0.025 seconds.

Nakagami, riding injured teammate Cal Crutchlow's old 2018-spec Honda, logged his fastest time of the day with a little over an hour to run, a 1m37.945s, to displace Marquez at the head of the order.

That was a fraction quicker than Wednesday's benchmark, set by factory Ducati man Danilo Petrucci.

Nakagami was at the forefront of a late host of improvements, with Yamaha's Maverick Vinales jumping to third around the same time with a time just 0.121s off the pace.

Jorge Lorenzo made it three Honda riders in the top four with a 1m38.105s shortly after the seven-hour mark.

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Gallery: The best images from Jerez testing

Petrucci was once again the best of the Ducati runners in fifth, three places ahead of Andrea Dovizioso, who despite suffering pain after his Wednesday crash was able to take part in Thursday's running as normal.

Splitting the two factory Ducati runners were Franco Morbidelli on the Petronas SRT Yamaha and another GP19 rider, Pramac's Jack Miller.

Top rookie Francesco Bagnaia on the second Pramac bike and Alex Rins (Suzuki) completed the top 10.

Valentino Rossi was half a second slower than Yamaha teammate Vinales and ended the final day of 2018 running 11th, one place ahead of another rookie, Fabio Quartararo (Petronas).

Pol Espargaro was the quickest of the KTMs in 15th, four places ahead of new teammate Johann Zarco, while Andrea Iannone led the way for Aprilia in 18th.

Iannone's teammate Aleix Espargaro made a brief appearance having sat out most of the test due to illness, but Bradley Smith spent the majority of the day on the #41 machine that was 20th fastest.

No crashes were reported in an incident-free day of running, although Ducati tester Alvaro Bautista did stop on track after running out of fuel.

MotoGP now goes into a two-month winter shutdown, with the first official pre-season test of 2019 taking place at Sepang on 6-8 February, following a shakedown for test riders on 1-3 February.

Session results

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap	Laps
1	30	Takaaki Nakagami	Honda	1:37.945		66
2	93	Marc Marquez	Honda	1:37.970	0.025	56
3	12	Maverick Vinales	Yamaha	1:38.066	0.121	78
4	99	Jorge Lorenzo	Honda	1:38.105	0.160	65
5	9	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	1:38.109	0.164	68
6	21	Franco Morbidelli	Yamaha	1:38.118	0.173	68
7	43	Jack Miller	Ducati	1:38.207	0.262	57
8	4	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1:38.292	0.347	44
9	63	Francesco Bagnaia	Ducati	1:38.333	0.388	50
10	42	Alex Rins	Suzuki	1:38.522	0.577	63
11	46	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	1:38.596	0.651	67
12	20	Fabio Quartararo	Yamaha	1:38.761	0.816	58
13	53	Tito Rabat	Ducati	1:38.876	0.931	60
14	36	Joan Mir	Suzuki	1:38.931	0.986	55
15	44	Pol Espargaro	KTM	1:39.144	1.199	60
16	19	Alvaro Bautista	Ducati	1:39.338	1.393	65
17	17	Karel Abraham	Ducati	1:39.744	1.799	40
18	29	Andrea Iannone	Aprilia	1:39.826	1.881	36
19	5	Johann Zarco	KTM	1:39.864	1.919	64
20	41	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	1:40.156	2.211	11
21	38	Bradley Smith	Aprilia	1:40.325	2.380	59
22	50	Sylvain Guintoli	Suzuki	1:40.498	2.553	65
23	55	Hafizh Syahrin	KTM	1:40.520	2.575	54
24	88	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	1:40.577	2.632	61
25	15	Matteo Baiocco	Aprilia	1:41.907	3.962	48