Takaaki Nakagami (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) continued his good run of preseason form on Day 1 of private testing at the Circuito de Jerez, going fastest in Moto2™ with a good number of his expected key rivals in 2017 also present – including CarXpert Interwetten, Forward Racing and Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS. The Japanese rider kept his place at the top of the timesheets as rain fell on Day 2 - first overnight, then getting heavier throughout the day and leaving laptimes static.
Day 1 saw good weather allow a lot of running, however, leaving many of those present satisfied with at least one full day of work. Nakagami’s best lap on Day 1 was a 1:42.210 after 70 laps, just ahead of Lorenzo Baldassarri for Forward Racing on a 1:42.292, with teammate Luca Marini in hot pursuit. Morbidelli was P4 with a 1:42.802, ahead of 2015 Moto3™ Champion Danny Kent in fifth for Kiefer Racing – the fastest Suter as the Swiss machines get set to re-populate more of the grid in 2017.
Tom Lüthi was P6 for CarXpert Interwetten, just ahead of compatriot Dominique Aegerter on the second Kiefer Racing Suter. Jorge Navarro (Federal Oil Gresini Moto2) was P9, with many riders present not using transponders and showing up on the official timesheets.
Nicolo Bulega (Sky Racing Team VR46) was the quickest in Moto3™ with a 1:46.912 – ahead of Philipp Oettl (Südmetall Schedl GP Racing) and Jorge Martin (Del Conca Racing Team Gresini).
There were five crashes on Day 1, with Lüthi, Marini, Sandro Cortese (Dynavolt Intact GP), Alex Marquez (Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS) and Yonny Hernandez (AGR Team) all suffering incidents with no consequence.
With Day 2 rained off, the Circuito de Jerez next hosts another part of the MotoGP™ paddock, with a private test for the Repsol Honda Team seeing Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa back on track at home in Spain.