Pedrosa tops first day of MotoGP pre-season testing

Pedrosa upped his pace drastically late on, blitzing the field with a 1m59.427s effort that left him three and a half tenths clear of his nearest rival, Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso.

The test kicked off with the track soaked by rain, and the field were limited to wet-weather running in the opening hours as Tech 3 Yamaha's Johann Zarco set the initial pace.

LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow kicked off slick-tyre testing as the eight-hour session approached halfway, and times began to quickly trickle down until Rossi emerged a comfortable leader with a 2m00.799s.

The Italian spent almost an hour as the only rider below 2m01s, until he was joined there by teammate Maverick Vinales – who first went 0.041s quicker and then shaved off another small chunk of laptime to end up at 2m00.714s.

Shortly thereafter, the Yamaha pair were surpassed by new leader Dovizioso, who himself subsequently yielded the spot to Pedrosa – the Honda man posting a 2m00.526s to go three hundredths clear.

But Rossi improved again, and appeared likely to end the day quickest with his 2m00.233s lap before widespread improvements in the dying minutes shuffled him down to sixth.

Pedrosa and Dovizioso aside, Rossi was also overhauled by Ducati works rider Jorge Lorenzo, who leapt up to third at the chequered flag, and Pramac Ducati duo Danilo Petrucci and Jack Miller, who made up the top five.

Pedrosa's Honda factory teammate and reigning MotoGP champion Marc Marquez was seventh, ahead of Zarco and Crutchlow, the latter suffering a minor mid-session crash.

Pol Espargaro was the lead KTM in 10th, while Alex Rins logged the 11th-best time as the highest-placed Suzuki rider. Aleix Espargaro was Aprilia's benchmark in 14th, over a second up on his new teammate Scott Redding.

Vinales, who had dominated the pre-season last year, was only 13th, with both he and Yamaha teammate Rossi having ended the day early.

Yamaha also fielded bikes for test riders Kohta Nozane and Katsuyuki Nakasuga, as the team trialled an all-new aggressive winged fairing.

Marc VDS rider Tom Luthi, making his test debut with the team after he'd missed the 2017 post-season through injury, was 4.3s off the pace.

Session results

Pos.	Rider	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Dani Pedrosa	Honda	1:59.427		56
2	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati	1:59.770	0.343	35
3	Jorge Lorenzo	Ducati	1:59.802	0.375	38
4	Danilo Petrucci	Pramac Ducati	2:00.123	0.696	30
5	Jack Miller	Pramac Ducati	2:00.178	0.751	43
6	Valentino Rossi	Yamaha	2:00.233	0.806	50
7	Marc Marquez	Honda	2:00.290	0.863	51
8	Johann Zarco	Tech 3 Yamaha	2:00.421	0.994	62
9	Cal Crutchlow	LCR Honda	2:00.522	1.095	38
10	Pol Espargaro	KTM	2:00.568	1.141	39
11	Alex Rins	Suzuki	2:00.627	1.200	63
12	Takaaki Nakagami	LCR Honda	2:00.664	1.237	64
13	Maverick Vinales	Yamaha	2:00.714	1.287	72
14	Aleix Espargaro	Aprilia	2:00.866	1.439	40
15	Tito Rabat	Avintia Ducati	2:00.912	1.485	66
16	Andrea Iannone	Suzuki	2:01.027	1.600	41
17	Bradley Smith	KTM	2:01.099	1.672	39
18	Franco Morbidelli	Marc VDS Honda	2:01.161	1.734	62
19	Alvaro Bautista	Nieto Ducati	2:01.728	2.301	40
20	Sylvain Guintoli	Suzuki	2:01.864	2.437	58
21	Scott Redding	Aprilia	2:01.962	2.535	51
22	Test bike	Yamaha	2:02.044	2.617	28
23	Yonny Hernandez	Tech 3 Yamaha	2:02.053	2.626	47
24	Karel Abraham	Nieto Ducati	2:02.088	2.661	46
25	Test bike	Yamaha	2:02.527	3.100	39
26	Xavier Simeon	Avintia Ducati	2:02.946	3.519	47
27	Tom Luthi	Marc VDS Honda	2:03.732	4.305	58
28	Test bike	Yamaha	2:03.786	4.359	4
29	Michele Pirro	Ducati	2:04.767	5.340	4
30	Mika Kallio	KTM	2:05.932	6.505	7