Dani Pedrosa sets the pace on second day of testing at Valencia

For Valentino Rossi and Yamaha, however, the wait for dry weather running continues.

The team travelled overnight to Aragon in a bid to give the Italian maximum seat time, only for difficult conditions to make the day an effective write-off.

2012 champion Jorge Lorenzo also suffered a minor fall at Turn 16, from which both he and his bike emerged unscathed.

The second day at Valencia had also started in similar fashion, with only Aleix Espargaro and Andrea Iannone completing laps in difficult first hour conditions.

Tech 3's Bradley Smith was able to join shortly after however, getting his first laps on grand prix machinery after being forced to sit out all of Tuesday.

In the afternoon Valencia was finally dry enough for slicks leading to a rush or riders heading out - with Moto2 champion Marc Marquez on the works Honda among them.

The Spaniard bedded in steadily, first completing a seven-lap run and eventually clocking 28 laps before the day's end.

He improved consistently and eventually worked his way down to a 1m33.403s, just over one second down on his Honda team-mate and 2012 championship runner-up Pedrosa.

The pair were separated by five other riders: Cal Crutchlow, Stefan Bradl, Nicky Hayden, Alvaro Bautista and Andrea Dovizioso.

Crutchlow ended just over three tenths of a second down on Pedrosa, and just over 0.1s up on Bradl, newly confirmed as a Honda factory-supported rider at LCR until 2014.

Nicky Hayden meanwhile edged out his new Ducati team-mate Dovizioso by just under three tenths of a second.

Michele Pirro, Ducati's 2013 test rider, ended the day eighth fastest ahead of Iannone, riding for the restructured Pramac satellite squad. The Italian was the day's busiest rider, clocking up 56 laps.

Aspar's Randy de Puniet beat Smith to 10th, while Karel Abraham, Danilo Petrucci, Hector Barbera and Espargaro rounding out the day's order.

Pos  Rider             Bike                  Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 1m32.322s
 2.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m32.671s  + 0.349s
 3.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             1m32.813s  + 0.491s
 4.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                1m32.956s  + 0.634s
 5.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         1m33.109s  + 0.787s
 6.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                1m33.238s  + 0.916s
 7.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 1m33.403s  + 1.081s
 8.  Michele Pirro     Pramac Ducati         1m33.625s  + 1.303s
 9.  Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati         1m33.833s  + 1.511s
10.  Randy De Puniet   Aspar Aprilia         1m34.081s  + 1.759s
11.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m34.538s  + 2.216s
12.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Aprilia       1m35.309s  + 2.987s
13.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda Suter-BMW        1m35.403s  + 3.081s
14.  Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m39.248s  + 6.926s
15.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia         1m43.517s  + 11.195s