Jorge Lorenzo set the pace by a full second on day one of the final pre-season test at Jerez although the weather didn’t allow the most representative of running. The world champion led a familiar top three including Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez but the circuit was never fit for dry tyres at any stage.
Lorenzo found the best of the conditions to clock a 1:47.423 but was more encouraged by the way his Yamaha YZR-M1 looked after the wet tyres as the track evolved.
“We stayed on the track the whole day in the wet conditions and it was good to see how the bike performed. We improved a little bit but then the rear tyre dropped so we have to calm the bike down a little bit in the acceleration. We are quite good in the wet here in Jerez. It’s the first time we are in these conditions so it’s important to understand what our levels are. It’s important to be competitive in this situation. We proved when the track was drying up that we could keep the performance of the rear tyre over distance. It doesn’t matter how fast you are in one lap, if you can’t keep the level over the whole race you cannot win.”
Pedrosa and Marquez matched each other in the mid-1:48s and were both fairly satisfied despite the sizeable gap between themselves and Lorenzo while Andrea Iannone shone in the tricky conditions to finish fourth on the Pramac Ducati. The Italian squad’s test rider Michele Pirro took fifth ahead of Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden with Cal Crutchlow, Stefan Bradl and Andrea Dovizioso completing a top ten spread out over 2.8 seconds.
Bradley Smith and Michael Laverty kept their running to a minimum, finishing 16th and 23rd respectively, while the Aspar team chose not to go out all day and save their new engine for dry conditions.
| Official MotoGP Test – Jerez (Saturday 22nd March) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Rider | Nat | Team | Time | Laps | |
| 1 | 99. Jorge Lorenzo |  |
Yamaha Factory Racing | 1:47.423 | 39 | |
| 2 | 26. Dani Pedrosa | |
Repsol Honda Team | 1:48.474 | 30 | |
| 3 | 93. Marc Marquez | |
Repsol Honda Team | 1:48.524 | 38 | |
| 4 | 29. Andrea Iannone |  |
Energy T.I. Pramac Racing | 1:48.984 | 27 | |
| 5 | 51. Michele Pirro | |
Ducati Test Team | 1:49.292 | 48 | |
| 6 | 46. Valentino Rossi | |
Yamaha Factory Racing | 1:49.443 | 36 | |
| 7 | 69. Nicky Hayden |  |
Ducati Team | 1:49.643 | 20 | |
| 8 | 35. Cal Crutchlow |  |
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 1:49.692 | 19 | |
| 9 | 6. Stefan Bradl |  |
LCR Honda MotoGP | 1:49.790 | 33 | |
| 10 | 04. Andrea Dovizioso | |
Ducati Team | 1:50.266 | 22 | |
| 11 | 11. Ben Spies | |
Ignite Pramac Racing | 1:50.957 | 18 | |
| 12 | 68. Yonny Hernandez |  |
Paul Bird Motorsport | 1:51.269 | 31 | |
| 13 | 19. Alvaro Bautista | |
Go & Fun Honda Gresini | 1:51.277 | 31 | |
| 14 | 17. Karel Abraham |  |
Cardion AB Motoracing | 1:51.333 | 26 | |
| 15 | 71. Claudio Corti | |
NGM Mobile Forward Racing | 1:52.034 | 35 | |
| 16 | 38. Bradley Smith | |
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 1:52.047 | 14 | |
| 17 | 9. Danilo Petrucci | |
Came IodaRacing Project | 1:52.180 | 18 | |
| 18 | 8. Hector Barbera | |
Avintia Blusens | 1:52.291 | 17 | |
| 19 | 7. Hiroshi Aoyama |  |
Avintia Blusens | 1:52.676 | 56 | |
| 20 | 5. Colin Edwards | |
NGM Mobile Forward Racing | 1:53.992 | 17 | |
| 21 | 67. Bryan Staring |  |
Go & Fun Honda Gresini | 1:56.119 | 37 | |
| 22 | 52. Lukas Pesek | |
Came Ioda Racing Project | 1:56.413 | 17 | |
| 23 | 33. Michael Laverty | |
Paul Bird Motorsport | 1:56.931 | 12 | |
| 24 | 14. Randy de Puniet |  |
Power Electronics Aspar | No Time | 0 | |
| 25 | 41. Aleix Espargaro | |
Power Electronics Aspar | No Time | 0 | |
