JEREZ DE LA FRONTERA, SPAIN - MAY 06: Maverick Vinales of Spain and Movistar Yamaha MotoGP rounds the bend during the MotoGp of Spain - Qualifying at Circuito de Jerez on May 6, 2017 in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images)

Maverick ViƱales was the last rider out in Saturday afternoon's qualifying session where he clocked a fast time in Q2 and immediately moved up to provisional fourth place before the pace picked up.

The Spaniard then put his head down and improved his time to a 1ā€˜38.677s to promote to third on the provisional front row and returned to the box.

On a one-stop strategy, the Yamaha rider entered pit lane with seven minutes of the session remaining and went back out on track one and a half minute later.

He had just enough time for two more tries and didn't hesitate to put the hammer down to drop a 1'38s lap, but he was unable to improve on his earlier achievement.

His second hot lap of the session was fast enough to hold fourth place, 0.428s from pole, on the second row of the grid.

ā€œI think today was good,ā€ he said. ā€œWe worked quite hard and tried to find a good set-up. Honestly, the right side of the tyre is really good, but when I go onto the left side I suddenly have a lot of wheelspin. We have to check it out this night and work really hard for tomorrowā€˜s warm-up.ā€

ā€œWe still have to decide on the tyre options. We did many laps on the medium tyre and the lap times werenā€˜t so bad, so we have to continue like that. Like we did today, we have to work a little bit more than we usually doĀ during the warm-up, so I think tomorrow itā€˜s important to find a good set-up, especially for the left side.ā€