Vinales tops post-race Jerez test, injured Quartararo absent

Yamaha MotoGP rider Maverick Vinales set the pace in the post-Spanish Grand Prix test at Jerez while his team-mate Fabio Quartararo was absent with the arm pump issue that cost him the race win on Sunday.

Vinales led the way in both laptime and mileage, having topped the timing screens early on, he then just jumped ahead of Suzuki rider Alex Rins in the latter stages to take the top spot.

Rins ended the day 0.034s off Vinales’ 1m36.879s – a time that would’ve been good enough for fourth on the grid for Sunday’s race.

The Spanish duo were well clear of the rest of the pack on Monday, with Rins’ Suzuki team-mate Joan Mir best of the remaining riders in third place, 0.431s off.

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Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda), Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati) and Pol Espargaro (Honda) completed the top six, albeit Espargaro did have a crash at Turn 1.

Espargaro’s team-mate Marc Marquez, who continues his recovery from a lengthy spell on the sidelines, completed just seven laps (compared to Vinales’ 101) before calling it a day due to fatigue from Sunday’s race.

But his haul of seven laps was still seven more than that of Vinales’ team-mate Quartararo, who elected to skip the test, instead prioritising “a medical check-up” in order to figure out how to combat the arm pump issue that robbed him of Spanish GP victory.

The top 13 in the test were split by no more than a second, albeit 13th-placed rookie Enea Bastianini was closed to third-placed Mir than Mir was to leader Vinales.

Spanish GP victor Jack Miller was 18th quickest on his Ducati.