It is dry and sunny at Valencia today, and the teams are out to begin the new 2012 season and the debut or may we say the welcome return of 1000cc machines.
Besides the usual MotoGP riders (minus Jorge Lorenzo who is still recovering from his finger injury) and teams, there are also some CRT’s on track.
Ivan Silva is on the Inmotech which we’ve already seen and read about in the past, Gianluca Nannelli is on Grillini Team’s (they’re from the Italian CIV) Gapam bike that mounts a BMW S 1000RR engine, and apparently Federico Sandi will also be testing the new bike according to his personal website.
Nicky Hayden has done only a few laps due to a sprained wrist, but the Ducati GP0 with the full aluminium chassis seems to encounter favour with the various Ducati riders and Randy de Puniet is set to test Suzuki’s GSV-R 800 later this afternoon, with no word where he’ll be going next season.
Stefan Bradl is out on LCR Honda’s 800 and at the moment he looks faster than Toni Elias was in similar track conditions during FP3 last Saturday morning.
Andrea Dovizioso is now with Tech3 and testing Yamaha’s 2012 bike, while Josh Hayes’ wife/racer Melissa Paris got to test ride the same M1 that hubby rode this weekend during the Valencia GP.
Session 1 Lap times as of 13:00 – courtesy of MotoGP official website:1 Casey Stoner Repsol Honda Team 1:32.
876 (12 laps)2 Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda Team 1:32.
939 (18)3 Ben Spies Yamaha Factory Racing 1:33.
49 (42)4 Valentino Rossi Ducati Team 1:33.
857 (28)5 Cal Crutchlow Monster Yamaha Tech3 1:34.
754 (39)6 Andrea Dovizioso Monster Yamaha Tech3 1:34.
790 (16)7 Karel Abraham Cardion AB Motoracing 1:34.
840 (27)8 Hector Barbera Pramac Racing Team 1:35.
052 (21)9 Stefan Bradl LCR Honda MotoGP 1:35.
592 (22)10 Akiyosshi Kosuki Repsol Honda Team 1:37.
475 (5)11 Ivan Silva BQR 1:38.
074 (25)12 Carmelo Morales Desguaces la Torre 1:39.
100 (14)13 Gianluca Nannelli Grillini Team 1:42.
970 (8)14 Nicky Hayden Ducati Team 1:51.
702 (4)