San Carlo Honda's Alvaro Bautista saved what he thought was a certain crash on the first day of MotoGP tesing at Sepang this morning, digging his elbow into the tarmac and forcing the front wheel back up and into some semblance of grip.

The Spaniard, who defected from Suzuki at the end of last season, was the fastest of the satellite bikes in slippery conditions and lapped quicker than both the factory Ducatis before the rain fell.

"The track surface was in poor condition and it was very difficult to push, so we focused on experimenting with some different set-up solutions to increase my confidence on the 1000cc bike. The rainfall brought our day to an early conclusion because with the already precarious conditions it was better to leave everything else we had planned until tomorrow. I had a miraculous escape this morning in turn five when I basically crashed, but managed to keep the bike upright on my elbow," said Bautista.