Marc Marquez ended the first test of the 2016 season on top after posting the fastest lap at Valencia during today’s session.
Marquez began brightly this morning on the 2015 RC213V, taking the top spot off the early starters such as Jack Miller, Scott Redding and Andrea Dovizioso.
Miller started life on the Marc VDS Honda in superb form, hurtling his factory-spec RC213V around the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in 1’33.659s with Scott Redding joining him on track on his new Pramac Ducati.
Redding took it very easy on his first few laps on the GP15 Desmosedici, but got up to speed thereafter and posted a succession of impressive laps in the 1’32s eventually ending the day in 11th.
The morning saw Marquez lead the way with a 1’32.077 not long after leaving pitlane for his first succession of laps, but disaster struck for the Spaniard after four laps as he lost the front end at Turn 3.
That fall saw the double MotoGP world champion head back to the paddock, but no-one could touch his times while he gathered himself back in pitlane.
Movistar Yamaha duo Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, like a number of the teams and riders present, began the session on the 2015 bikes to gain more data with the new Michelin tyres.
Lorenzo and Rossi, however, initially struggled to break into the top ten as they sussed out the new rubber on a beautiful day in western Spain.
Just under midway through the session it was Marquez who led from his Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa, but not long after the Ducati of Andrea Iannone displaced him to take second, with Maverick Vinales sitting fourth on the Suzuki.
It would stay this way for the majority of the remainder of the testing session, as Marquez ended the day on a 1’31.551 though he did have his moments on the Michelin tyres – with at least two saves stopping him from another trip to the gravel trap.
He wasn’t the only rider to feel the wrath of Michelin’s recalcitrant front-end, as Cal Crutchlow, Eugene Laverty, Aleix and Pol Espargaro, Tito Rabat, Stefan Bradl, Jack Miller and Andrea Iannone all had tumbles at various parts of the 2.49-mile circuit.
Luckily, none of the riders were injured and most of the motorcycles came through relatively unscathed on the face of it, but it confirmed the fears of many riders that work must be done – by both riders and tyre manufacturer - on the front tyres.
Towards the end of the session, the factory riders of Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez, Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi all went out on track using their 2016 machinery but it was something of a fact-finding mission and changed little on the timesheets.
Indeed, Valentino Rossi – perhaps understandably so given his weekend – looked pretty miserable for much of the session and he ended the day way down in 12th as his team-mate and world champion Lorenzo finished proceedings in fifth place.
As Lorenzo and Rossi got to test their machinery for next year with 35 minutes to go, so too did Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro.
The Tech 3 Yamaha duo got to spend the final minutes of the seven-hour long testing session on the 2015 Factory M1 Yamaha motorcycles but again it did little to upset the timesheets, with Espargaro and Smith ending the day seventh and eighth respectively.
