The MotoGP World Championship field returned to the scene of Sunday’s dramatic Grand Prix of Spain for a testing session today at Jerez, with Dani Pedrosa set the fastest time of the day.

After his valiant second place in the race on Sunday, Pedrosa was immediately fast again today and set his quickest time of 1:39.425 on only his fifth lap out of the pits. The time was three tenths of a second inside the new race lap record the Spaniard set yesterday.

Pedrosa emerged unscathed from a fall towards the end of the session and ended the day in an upbeat mood.

“This was a useful day of testing and we spent some time working in detail on suspension adjustments – some of the things we didn’t have the time to test in the pre-season because we were focusing on other issues,” Pedrosa commented. “We also tried a modified spec engine and collected some information for the development engineers, but it’s too early to say whether it’s a step forward yet because we only had two runs out of the pits with it.

“The crash was a little strange and I wasn’t expecting it, but the important thing is that I’m not hurt and I can look forward to Le Mans which is a circuit I’ve raced well at before. I’m looking forward to the next round.”

Second fastest was Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi ahead of teammate Jorge Lorenzo, while LCR Honda rider Randy de Puniet was a solid fourth ahead of Pedrosa’s Repsol Honda factory teammate Andrea Dovizioso.

A day of intense work for the Ducati Marlboro Team saw Australian Casey Stoner just outside the top five in sixth overall with a 1:39.786, edging out American teammate Nicky Hayden.

“Today was quite productive because we found a race set-up for this track that was better than yesterday, with improved front feeling which is what we had been looking for all weekend,” Stoner explained.

“We went for quite a radical change and it did the trick but we’ll have to wait and see if it works at other circuits because this place tends to put more pressure on front tyres than a lot of places and it requires a particular approach. Anyway, we go to Le Mans with a lot of useful data and hopefully it can help us there too.”

Rounding out the top 10 results at the test were Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Ben Spies, Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi, and Texan Colin Edwards on the second of the satellite Yamahas.

MOTOGP JEREZ TEST LAP TIMES:
1. Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda 1:39.425
2. Valentino Rossi Fiat Yamaha 1:39.480
3. Jorge Lorenzo Fiat Yamaha 1:39.506
4. Randy De Puniet LRC Honda 1:39.609
5. Andrea Dovizioso Repsol Honda 1:39.760
6. Casey Stoner Marlboro Ducati 1:39.786
7. Nicky Hayden Marlboro Ducati 1:39.906
8. Ben Spies Yamaha Tech3 1:39.958
9. Loris Capirossi Rizla Suzuki 1:40.040
10. Colin Edwards Yamaha Tech3 1:40.042
11. Marco Melandri San Carlo Honda 1:40.129
12. Marco Simoncelli San Carlo Honda 1:40.370
13. Mika Kallio Pramac Ducati 1:40.446
14. Alvaro Bautista Rizla Suzuki 1:40.463
15. Hiroshi Aoyama Interwetten Honda 1:40.470
16. Aleix Espargaro Pramac Ducati 1:40.686
17. Hector Barbera Aspar MotoGP team 1:40.932