Melandri quickest at rain-hit Jerez
Marco Melandri was quickest on the rain-hit opening day of this week's MotoGP test at Jerez in Spain on Friday as Bridgestone-tyred bikes led the way
The Gresini Honda rider set the best lap of 1:42.563 on his final lap to edge out Casey Stoner's Ducati Marlboro bike, also on Bridgestones, by seven hundredths of a second.
Melandri said he was more encouraged by the amount of progress that his team had made over recent weeks than his single quick lap today.
"I'm tired after today but it was a good day as we had one bike set up as we had finished the test here in November, and another set up as we left Qatar last week," Melandri told autosport.com. "So we could understand how we've progressed through the winter. It's good to see the bike from Qatar is better."
The day had started under a downpour and for the first few hours of running only a few bikes had dared ventured out on the soaking track.
But as the clouds cleared and were replaced by sunshine in the late afternoon everyone was able to complete a fair amount of running.
Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa was the leading Michelin runner in third place on the timesheets, just ahead of Carlos Checa on the Honda LCR.
Alex Barros was fifth quickest for Pramac D'Antin on his Ducati, while Randy de Puniet continued to show some impressive speed on his Kawasaki.
Ducati Marlboro's Loris Capirossi was seventh fastest, ahead of Pramac D'Antin's Alex Hofmann and Honda Gresini's Toni Elias.
Yamaha Factory Racing duo Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi, who have dominated pre-season testing do far, were down in 11th and 13th places respectively, while world champion Nicky Hayden was down in 19th despite completing 63 laps.
Pos Rider Team Time Laps 1. Marco Melandri Honda Gresini 1:42.563 34 2. Casey Stoner Ducati Marlboro Team 1:42.634 32 3. Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda Team 1:42.706 50 4. Carlos Checa Honda LCR 1:43.206 48 5. Alex Barros Pramac d'Antin 1:43.214 34 6. Randy De Puniet Kawasaki Racing Team 1:43.315 40 7. Loris Capirossi Ducati Marlboro Team 1:43.475 21 8. Alex Hofmann Pramac d'Antin 1:43.673 30 9. Toni Elias Honda Gresini 1:43.687 51 10. Shinya Nakano Konica Minolta Honda 1:43.817 37 11. Colin Edwards Yamaha Factory Racing Team 1:43.845 41 12. Chris Vermeulen Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1:44.052 27 13. Valentino Rossi Yamaha Factory Racing Team 1:44.494 35 14. Olivier Jacque Kawasaki Racing Team 1:44.659 39 15. Makoto Tamada Dunlop Yamaha Tech 3 1:45.081 52 16. Sylvain Guintoli Dunlop Yamaha Tech 3 1:45.208 54 17. Vittoriano Guareschi Ducati Marlboro Team 1:45.603 62 18. Shinichi Ito Ducati Marlboro Team 1:45.826 37 19. Nicky Hayden Repsol Honda Team 1:45.901 63 20. Kenny Roberts Jr Team Roberts 1:45.937 17 21. Kousuke Akiyoshi Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1:47.191 55 22. Jeremy Mcwilliams Ilmor GP 1:47.696 37 23. Andrew Pitt Ilmor GP 1:49.365 33
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