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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.

Takaki Nakagami, LCR Honda Idemitsu

Takaki Nakagami, LCR Honda Idemitsu

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

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.

MotoGP photos:

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

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