Simón on form at Valencia

The colder track at the official Moto2/125cc test at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia failed to slow the riders down on Tuesday, as the mixed morning session ended with Julián Simón of the Mapfre Aspar team as the quickest rider.

Continuing the good work he completed on day one the Spaniard’s lap time of 1'37.156 was 0.374s quicker than Toni Elías’ timesheet-topping effort from Monday, and more than a second separated the two on Tuesday.

Following Simón on the Tuesday timesheet were Yuki Takahashi (Tech3 Racing), who at 1’37.635 was 0.176s ahead of Kenny Noyes (Jack&Jones by A.Banderas). Claudio Corti (Forward Racing) at 1’37.943 was the fourth and final rider to come in under the 1’38” mark.

Thomas Lüthi (Interwetten Moriwaki Racing) continued to make progress on his machine with a significant improvement from the previous day as he occupied fifth on the timesheet with a 1’38.056. A gap of only five-thousandths of a second separated him from sixth fastest Alex de Angelis (Scot Racing).

Making a huge step up was Fonsi Nieto (G22 HolidayGym), whose time of 1’38.151 was well over a second better than his first day’s work and earned him seventh spot on the timesheet on Tuesday.

Toni Elías (Gresini Racing) – who was the quickest rider on Monday and whose time from the first day is still the second fastest overall of the test so far – was eighth on the timesheet in Tuesday’s mixed session, whilst Karel Abraham (Cardion AB Motoracing) and Jules Cluzel (Forward Racing) came in ninth and tenth respectively.

Sergio Gadea (Pons Racing), who suffered a fall yesterday and was unsure if he could participate today was fit enough to ride and placed 16th fastest, whilst British rider Scott Redding (Marc VDS Racing) improved on his own time by almost sixth-tenths of a second to 1’39.198.

Of the 125cc riders, Marc Márquez (Red Bull Ajo Motorsport) led the way with a blistering time of 1’40.280 – just over sixth-tenths quicker than Pol Espargaró’s top time from Monday – and was followed by Efrén Vazquez (Bainet Derbi) and Nico Terol, whose Bancaja Aspar team-mate Bradley Smith was just behind.