Valencia test finishes with Stoner fastest on day three

Casey Stoner led the lap times in the final day’s session of the Valencia test on Wednesday, as he finished the first phase of the fine-tuning of his Ducati Desmosedici machine with a best time of 1’31.900.

Testing new forks and a revised engine configuration on his factory prototype before the test was wrapped up at 1pm, Stoner put in 35 laps during the session, with his top time placing him 0.044s ahead of Dani Pedrosa.

Pedrosa, who has been testing Ohlins suspension on his 2010 RC212V prototype, was the only other rider to break the 1’32” barrier, with Stoner’s team-mate Nicky Hayden completing what has been a strong test for the Ducati factory bikes as he ranked third fastest, just under a second off his Australian colleague’s pace.

Andrea Dovizioso made a vast improvement on his previous two days’ work as he also came within a second of Stoner’s marker, completing a good final session for the factory Honda team.

Continuing his re-acquaintance with the Honda RC212V, Marco Melandri finished fifth quickest for the San Carlo Honda Gresini team. The new aluminium swing arm used by Mika Kallio helped the Finn continue well on his Pramac Ducati, with new team-mate Aleix Espargaró also enjoying the last day of the test as his best lap saw him rank seventh-fastest as he took in 55 laps.

Loris Capirossi completed 43 turns on his Suzuki, while Héctor Barberá led the 250cc graduates with a best time of 1’33.787 on his Aspar Ducati, lapping at just under 1.9s off Stoner. Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini), Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki) and Hiroshi Aoyama (Interwetten Honda MotoGP) were also present on the final morning of testing at Valencia as well.