Elías leads Moto2 field after day one

The opening day of the last Official pre-season Test at Jerez ended with Toni Elías the fastest rider of the Moto2 class. The Gresini Racing rider, one of the title favourites for the inaugural season of the new intermediate category, set a time of 1’44.077 during almost 80 laps, improving on his best time at the same track three weeks ago by almost a full second.

“I’m very pleased with this first day, especially because some new aspects have arrived from Japan that have worked perfectly,” stated Elías in reference to his Moriwaki frame. “We still lack a certain something to arrive in Qatar at 100%, but we are already at a good level.”

Elías was four-tenths of a second ahead of nearest rival, Colombian rookie Yonny Hernández. The rider of the Blusens STX team has also been in superb form in pre-season, announcing his arrival on the World Championship scene with some highly impressive displays in the Tests to date. Today was no different at the track at which he has experience from the 2009 CEV Buckler (Spanish National Championship). Hernández was ahead of Jules Cluzel (Forward Racing) who was third quickest and Alex de Angelis (Scot Racing) – fourth – in the combined standings, after the mixed morning session with the 125cc riders and the Moto2-only spell this afternoon.

In fifth spot was Julián Simón (Mapfre Aspàr), as the reigning 125cc World Championship returned to the top end of the timesheet. He was followed by Viessmann Kiefer Racing’s Stefan Bradl – just a tenth of a second behind – with Yuki Takahashi (Tech3 Racing) the last rider in the category to come in under the 1’45” mark. Thomas Lüthi (Interwetten Moriwaki Moto2), British rider Scott Redding (Marc VDS Racing) and Shoya Tomizawa (Technomag-CIP) completed the top ten times on Saturday.

In addition to the fall of Sergio Gadea from this morning, Dominique Aegerter (Technomag-CIP), Axel Pons (Tenerife 40 Pons), Niccolò Canepa (Scot Racing) and Karel Abraham (Cardion AB) all experienced similar slips in the afternoon.

You can see the Moto2 results from day one by clicking here.