Jonathan Rea takes pole at Estoril

Rea was quick out of the blocks in the 15-minute session, immediately lowering Razgatlioglu’s FP3 benchmark by two tenths with a time of 1m36.030s.

Reigning champion Razgatlioglu sat second behind Rea after the first runs on a 1m36.209s, while Bautista was a lowly seventh as the riders headed to the pits for a fresh set of tyres.

A major jump in pace was seen across the board in the final five minutes of qualifying, with Rea the biggest gainer as he found nearly seven tenths on his next flying lap to break the circuit record and cement his position at the top of the order.

Razgatlioglu tried his best to dethrone his Kawasaki rival and completed two flying laps in a bid to continue to his pole run in 2022. But the Yamaha rider had to settle for second, falling short of Rea’s pole time of 1m35.346s by 0.091s.

Bautista was able to find a heap of time on his second run but could only qualify third on the factory Ducati, over six tenths down on Rea’s chart-topping time.

Scott Redding delivered the best qualifying performance of his short BMW stint to grab fourth on the grid, trailing Bautista – his replacement at Ducati – by just 0.016s.

Andrea Locatelli qualified a strong fifth on the second factory Yamaha, with Bautista’s teammate Michael Ruben Rinaldi not far behind on the other works Ducati.

Honda rider Iker Lecuona provisionally sat third after the first runs but slipped to seventh at the end of the session, although he did beat the factory Kawasaki of Alex Lowes by a tenth of a second.

Eugene Laverty emerged as the top independent rider on his Bonovo BMW bike, edging out the Puccetti Kawasaki of Lucas Mahias as the two completed the top 10.

Qualifying 11th was Xavi Vierge on the second of the factory Hondas, while Laverty’s teammate Loris Baz finished 12th after running off track with just two minutes left on the clock.

Garrett Gerloff didn’t take part in qualifying and will sit out the remainder of the weekend following a major crash in third…