Nico Terol sent an ominous message to his 125cc rivals by dominating the final practice session for the Grand Prix of Qatar.
The Bankia Aspar rider, who was quickest in both of Thursday's sessions, set a time of 2:06.957 to put nearly a full second between himself and the rest of the field.
The main focus of attention at the end of FP3 was the battle for second place, which eventually went the way of Efren Vazquez. The Derbi rider put in a lap of 2:07.888 to edge out Sandro Cortese and Sergio Gadea who both failed to improve with last gap efforts.
Jonas Folger had held second place with six minutes to go but the German slipped back to fifth, 1.470 seconds off the pace.
Portuguese newcomer Miguel Oliveira certainly provided the fireworks. After initially setting the third fastest time, the 16 year old crashed at the final corner when he looked set to improve. After re-emerging in the dying seconds, the European 125cc runner-up fell again and had to make do with sixth.
Danny Kent appeared to struggle on day two, his best time of 2:10.533 was the best part of a second down on yesterday and he slipped down to 14th, a couple of places ahead of Danny Webb.
British rookie Harry Stafford made good progress, going over a second quicker than yesterday. However, he blotted his copybook with a fall midway through the session, doing his broken left hand no good at all.
The fourth Brit in 125s also improved significantly. Taylor Mackenzie finished 26th but the Scot was also substantially quicker than on day one.
The front-runners will have some serious head scratching ahead of them if they are to prevent Terol from taking pole position. Qualifying will take place at 15:00 GMT on Saturday.
