CAFÉ RACER 76

It wouldn’t be an official MotoGP test if at some point it wasn’t raining, and the first day of MotoGP testing at Jerez de la Frontera had plenty of intermittent rain showers along with gusting winds that made the test more or less a washout, as no one was willing to really risk that much in difficult weather conditions even if all the riders posted lap times and did between 12 laps to 56 laps.

The fastest rider of the day was Jorge Lorenzo who topped the time sheets in 1′47.423 that he did immediately after the lunch break. The Repsol Honda duo Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez were second and third and both were more than a second adrift with the MotoGP rookie just 0.050s from his team mate, with Pedrosa lamenting a slight return of the much hated chattering.

As usual the Ducati’s perform well in the wet, but it was Pramac’s Andrea Iannone who was faster than the factory riders as he completed the day fourth fastest and ahead of Ducati’s test rider Michele Pirro who was fifth (and he’ll be wild carding in the Jerez race in May) while Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso were 7th and 10th respectively and two seconds adrift from Lorenzo, with Hayden still having some problems with his wrist following surgery and Dovizioso having traction issues.

Valentino Rossi continues to blighted by technical problems and had to hit to track with his second bike with a set-up that he didn’t like at all as he finished sixth. Both Yamaha factory riders received new frames to evaluate.

Sandwiched between the factory Ducati riders were Cal Crutchlow and Stefan Bradl who suffered a crash in the afternoon session. Ben Spies’ was 11th on the other Pramac Ducati and a little more than three tenths faster than CRT rider Yonny Hernández with his PBM ART. Alvaro Bautista on RC213V Honda was 13th while Bradley Smith with Tech3’s Yamaha M1 was 15th.

More rain is expected tomorrow and we may see even less laps as each rider has only four sets of rain tires for the entire three-day test.

MotoGP Jerez test Day 1 results:

01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 1’47.423 (39 laps)
02- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 1.051 (30)
03- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 1.101 (38)
04- Andrea Iannone – Energy T.I. Pramac Racing Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.561 (27)
05- Michele Pirro – Ducati Test Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.869 (48)
06- Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 2.020 (36)
07- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 2.220 (20)
08- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 2.269 (19)
09- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 2.367 (33)
10- Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 2.843 (22)

with Twowheelsblog