Misano MotoGP: Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa shrug off 'wasted' practice day

Title rivals Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa were among a group of riders who stayed in the garage all day amid track conditions that were invariably too damp for slicks and too dry for full wets, as rain showers, cold temperatures and strong wind prevailed.

With dry weather forecast for the rest of the weekend, Lorenzo said it was more important to conserve engine mileage.

"It just wasn't necessary for us," he said. "We wanted to save the engine life and also save some energy."

Yamaha team manager Wilco Zeelenberg agreed that the risk was not worth the potential gain.

"We were smart not to go out, there was really nothing to gain or learn," he said. "If it was really wet we would have liked to go out but today there's a risk of hurting yourself for no reason."

Pedrosa said the inconsistency of the weather was the biggest deterrent.

"On days like this it's almost impossible to get any feedback on the bike," he said.

"Actually, we saw in both sessions that the weather was changing so quickly that the riders going out with slick tyres had to come back in because it started raining or the other way around: going out with wets and destroying them in just a few laps as it was drying up again."

Lorenzo's team-mate Ben Spies was one of the few factory riders who did any running, but admitted it had probably not been worth the effort.

"We didn't really get anything from the few laps we did, it's been pretty much a waste of a day for everybody," Spies said.

"We can't control the weather and unfortunately it was just too mixed conditions to do anything.

"We did a couple of laps to check everything was OK just in case qualifying is like that so we have a feeling for it.

"Other than that we just sat around, drank coffee and watched everybody."