The final pre-season MotoGP IRTA tests started at 10am this morning at Jerez de la Frontera, and Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa set the pace, only to be pushed aside by Jorge Lorenzo who was the first rider to start lapping.
Lorenzo’s best lap so far (at 1 pm) is 1.
40.
088 and a mere 0.
080s faster than Pedrosa and 0.
090s quicker than team mate Ben Spies.
Casey Stoner so far is fourth and 0.
263s off pace on a track that he has never won on, while Ducati’s Nicky Hayden has closed the gap with the front runners and 0.
427s from Lorenzo and in fourth.
From fifth to ninth position lap times are close with Cal Crutchlow in sixth followed by late starter Valentino Rossi who is currently in 7th and on hard tires with Andrea Dovizioso and Alvaro Bautista right on his tail and separated by mere thousanths of a second.
MotoGP rookie Stefan Bradl is in tenth and not surprisingly the first CRT rider is Randy de Puniet on the Aspar ART bike who is just a tenth of second from the satellite LCR Honda RC213V bike.
Following De Puniet is Hector Barbera and Karel Abraham on the GP12 Valencia version Ducati’s.
Aleix Espargaro on the other Aspar ART is ahead of Mattia Pasini on the IodaRacing ART are at the moment in 15th and 16th.
Test Times at 1 pm:1 LORENZO J.
Yamaha Factory Racing1:40.
1182 PEDROSA D.
Repsol Honda Team+0.
0803 SPIES B.
Yamaha Factory Racing+0.
0944 STONER C.
Repsol Honda Team+0.
2635 HAYDEN N.
Ducati Team+0.
4276 CRUTCHLOW C.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3+0.
5317 ROSSI V.
Ducati Team+0.
8388 DOVIZIOSO A.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3+0.
8429 BAUTISTA A.
San Carlo Honda Gresini+0.
85210 BRADL S.
LCR Honda+1.
35611 PUNIET R.
Power Electronics Aspar+1.
44612 BARBERA H.
Pramac Racing Team+1.
491