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Dani Pedrosa tops first day of Valencia post-season MotoGP test

Dani Pedrosa topped the first day of MotoGP testing at Valencia as a mixture of 800 and 1000cc machines took to the track

Honda riders Pedrosa and Casey Stoner, who had last ridden their 2012-spec machines at Misano in September, headed the timesheets for most of the day, with Stoner in front for the majority of the time.

It was Pedrosa though, who wound up fastest, clocking 1m32.186s on the fastest of his 40 laps, 0.136s up on his world champion team-mate, who suffered from excessive chatter on the new 2012-spec tyres during the day. Both RC123Vs featured revisions since the Misano test.

Ben Spies was the Honda riders' closest challenger, the American completed a marathon day of riding with his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo being still unfit to return to action following injury. He was a second off the pace on Yamaha's new M1.

Randy de Puniet made an impressive debut on Suzuki machinery, the Frenchman taking a 2011-spec 800cc bike to fourth spot, ahead of the new Tech 3 Yamaha and Ducati of Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi respectively.

Andrea Dovizioso capped his first day as a Tech 3 employee with seventh spot, ahead of new Pramac Ducati rider Hector Barbera, also on a 1000cc bike.

New Moto2 champion Stefan Bradl rode LCR's 800cc Honda and was ninth quickest, while Karel Abraham completed the top 10 on his Cardion AB Ducati.

A number of new bikes from claiming rules teams were given a run-out. The quickest was the BQR-run Inmotec of former MotoGP rider Ivan Silva, while the new Suter (with a BMW engine) and Gapam chassis also featured on-track.

Pos  Rider                  Team/Bike            Time       Gap
 1.  Dani Pedrosa           Honda                1m32.186s
 2.  Casey Stoner           Honda                1m32.322s  + 0.136s
 3.  Ben Spies              Yamaha               1m33.226s  + 1.040s
 4.  Randy de Puniet        Suzuki               1m33.544s  + 1.358s
 5.  Cal Crutchlow          Tech 3 Yamaha        1m33.652s  + 1.466s
 6.  Valentino Rossi        Ducati               1m33.857s  + 1.671s
 7.  Andrea Dovizioso       Tech 3 Yamaha        1m33.859s  + 1.673s
 8.  Hector Barbera         Pramac Ducati        1m34.174s  + 1.988s
 9.  Stefan Bradl           LCR Honda            1m34.330s  + 2.144s
10.  Karel Abraham          Cardion AB Ducati    1m34.393s  + 2.207s
11.  Franco Battaini        Ducati               1m35.371s  + 3.185s
12.  Kosuke Akiyoshi        Honda                1m35.728s  + 3.542s
13.  Ivan Silva             BQR Inmotec          1m37.159s  + 4.973s
14.  Carmelo Morales        Laglise Suter        1m38.989s  + 6.803s
15.  Gianluca Nannelli      Grillini Gapam       1m39.173s  + 6.987s
16.  Federico Sandi         Grillini Gapam       1m39.827s  + 7.641s

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