JEREZ, Spain – Fabio Quartararo raced to his fourth-straight Circuit de Jerez MotoGP pole on Saturday, becoming the first rider to earn four consecutive poles at the Spanish circuit.

Quartararo, the MotoGP championship leader, was in control throughout qualifying and claimed the top spot thanks to a fast lap of 1:36.755. He’ll be joined on the front row by Q1 graduate Franco Morbidelli and Jack Miller.

“It felt really good today. Jerez is one of the tracks that I really like. I have ridden a Yamaha four times at this track and four times I got pole position,” said Quartararo. “It‘s quite an amazing moment, I‘m really happy about this. But I will say that today‘s Q2 session was a qualifying where I was more on the limit. I thought I was going to crash in turn six and turn 13. I made a mistake in turn six, but ultimately what matters is that we got the pole position today. Tomorrow it‘s not going to be easy, but I feel prepared and that I have good potential. The medium and hard tire are both working well, so we will use the warm up tomorrow to decide which one we will use.”

Francesco Bagnaia qualified fourth for Ducati to lead the second row, followed by Takaaki Nakagami of LCR Honda and Pramac’s Johann Zarco.

Quartararo’s Monster Energy Yamaha teammate Maverick Vinales will start seventh, with Aleix Espargaro and Alex Rins next in the third row. Joan Mir, Brad Binder and Stefan Bradl qualified on the fourth row.