Rain cuts short Brno test

MotoGP Test highlights Brno 2010

Monday, 16 August 2010

The official MotoGP test at the Czech circuit ended at 3pm local time as the weather closed in, with Jorge Lorenzo remaining quickest thanks to his lap time from earlier in the day.

The rain which had been anticipated for the official one-day MotoGP test at Brno finally arrived on Monday afternoon, but only after the teams had managed to get a solid workload of testing completed by the time the last rider (Valentino Rossi) left the track at 3pm.

With little changes in the timesheet since the midday break at 1pm the only riders to improve their lap times in the afternoon session were Ben Spies (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) and Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini). That meant that Jorge Lorenzo (Fiat Yamaha), Casey Stoner (Ducati Team) and Dani Pedrosa remained the top three, with the Repsol Honda man having set his fastest time on a test bike this morning.

Lorenzo concentrated on a new 2011 prototype M1 in the afternoon and completed seven laps on it, whilst Stoner only took in four more turns of the Brno track as he continued looking at new front forks on the Desmosedici GP10. Pedrosa reverted back to his current season RC212V and lapped six more times.

Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) and Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) both continued working on their current M1 machines, whilst Spies took 0.178s off his morning lap time as he made progress on the 2011 prototype Yamaha.

Simoncelli made a marginal improvement of just under seven-hundredths on his RC212V, both he and team-mate Marco Melandri working on electronics and braking improvements. Héctor Barberá (Páginas Amarillas Aspar) tested a new carbon swingarm on his Ducati, whilst Mika Kallio (Pramac Racing) looked at geometry settings on his with team-mate Aleix Espargaró using the test to gain an improved level of comfort on his GP10.

Bridgestone also rolled out a new front tyre spec for next season which was tested by the majority of the riders present. The only absentee from the test was Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) who opted to rest after his return to racing yesterday following his broken leg. Álvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki) made 24 laps on his GSV-R, the fewest of the day as he continued to recover from the practice crash he suffered on Saturday.

Click here to see the finalised times.

Click here to read the report from 1pm, with further information on what the teams were testing.