Casey Stoner sets pace on first day of MotoGP testing at Jerez

The reigning world champion completed 54 laps on his Honda and set the benchmark time of 1m39.146s on his very last tour, leaving him 0.273s ahead of Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo.

Stoner declared himself happy with the day, having gone quickest at a time when increasingly windy conditions were making it difficult for riders to keep control of their bikes.

"Today has been quite good, we did a race distance with a soft set tyres this morning and we were getting quicker and quicker as we progressed, but I think also the circuit was getting better," Stoner said.

"Then we put the hard tyre on and did a tyre comparison and we had very similar feelings to what we had in [the previous test at] Sepang.

"We tried a few things with the chassis as the bike was proving slow to turn in the corner but in general it is working well especially at the end of the tyre life. On the last exit we did our fastest lap on a new soft rear tyre. It's been a good first day."

Lorenzo had held the top spot for much of the day as the Spaniard focused on the electronics on his Yamaha, but was forced to settle for second, ahead of Dani Pedrosa, who lost a chunk of the afternoon to a mechanical problem on one of his two factory Hondas.

Ben Spies was fourth for Yamaha ahead of the Tech 3-run M1 of Cal Crutchlow, who was the fastest of the non-factory riders in fifth.

Next up were Ducati rider Nicky Hayden and Alvaro Bautista on his Gresini Honda, although the latter crashed early in the day.

Rounding out the top 10 were Tech 3's Andrea Dovizioso, the struggling Valentino Rossi's Ducati and Moto2 champion Stefan Bradl's LCR Honda.

Former LCR rider Randy de Puniet was the fastest of the CRT riders in action on his Aspar Aprilia, just 0.1s off Bradl's time.

Today's times:

Pos  Rider             Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Casey Stoner      Honda                 1m39.146s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                1m39.419s  + 0.273s
 3.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 1m39.579s  + 0.433s
 4.  Ben Spies         Yamaha                1m39.984s  + 0.838s
 5.  Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m40.130s  + 0.984s
 6.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati                1m40.512s  + 1.366s
 7.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         1m40.545s  + 1.399s
 8.  Andrea Dovizioso  Tech 3 Yamaha         1m40.665s  + 1.519s
 9.  Valentino Rossi   Ducati                1m40.920s  + 1.774s
10.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             1m40.983s  + 1.837s
11.  Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia         1m41.015s  + 1.869s
12.  Hector Barbera    Pramac Ducati         1m41.388s  + 2.242s
13.  Karel Abraham     Cardion Ducati        1m41.603s  + 2.457s
14.  Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia         1m42.293s  + 3.147s
15.  Franco Battaini   Ducati                1m42.403s  + 3.257s
16.  Colin Edwards     Forward Suter-BMW     1m42.464s  + 3.316s
17.  Michele Pirro     Gresini FTR-Honda     1m42.655s  + 3.509s
18.  Danilo Petrucci   Ioda                  1m42.750s  + 3.604s
19.  Mattia Pasini     Speed Master          1m43.006s  + 3.509s
20.  Yonny Hernandez   Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m43.437s  + 4.291s
21.  James Ellison     Paul Bird Aprilia     1m43.477s  + 4.331s
22.  Ivan Silva        Avintia FTR-Kawasaki  1m44.025s  + 4.879s