Well i dont know how many of you have been following the pre season testing leading up to the 06 season but oh man it's looking likes it's going to be the best year ever, just recently the 1st offical MotoGP test was held at Catalunya where Rossi's dominated in the day setting the fastest time of 1.42.477 on the thrid day when the riders challenge to win the BMW M award it was soaking wet and Colin Edwards came through to take the win and the car, in normal test conditions in the wet Edwards went faster again but Gibber's snuck in showing he's more than up to speed on the Ducati in wet and dry, good ol Kenny Roberst honda mounted this year showed he's still demon in the wet, pity won't rain every race!
Running at the moment is the 3 day Jerez test, less than 2 weeks out from the first Race at Jerez, so you'd think the testing times here are going to give us a good indication to what will happen at this race, everyone remembers old Rossi duffing up Gibbers on the final turn last year, and so far after the second day with Ducati scoring a 1-2 finish on the first day the results are thus:
1. Shinya Nakano - Kawasaki Racing 1'40.047
2. Loris Capirossi - Ducati Marlboro 1'40.544
3. John Hopkins – Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1'40.791
4. Randy de Puniet - Kawasaki Racing 1'40.839
5. Dani Pedrosa - Repsol Honda 1'40.859
6. Valentino Rossi - Camel Yamaha 1'40.915
7. Carlos Checa - Tech 3 Yamaha 1'40.943
8. Sete Gibernau - Ducati Marlboro 1'40.964
9. Colin Edwards - Camel Yamaha 1'41.105
10. Chris Vermeulen – Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1'41.110
Nakano is over 1/2 a second inside the cricut record at this stage and close to 1/2 a second quicker than nearsest rider Capirossi, John Hopkins on tyhe new GSV-R put in a claen cut lap and de Puniet is well on the pace, whats interesting is the trouble Ducati, kawasaki, Suzuki were having with the bridgestones last year, nearer the end of the season it was said that bridgestone had made huge steps forward with there tyre's, with ducatis, Loris Capirossi scorings wins and podiums, now it looks like Bridgestone have got it sorted with the top 4 bikes all bridgestone shod.
The little midget and the only Honda rider in the top 10 Pedrosa, admitting he very much dislikes the wet conditions found at the final day at catalunya put in a large amount of laps on his specailly modified RCV211V (why cause he can not touch the ground when sitting on the stock bikeboy can ride though, he's faster than Rossi) what happened to last years end of season hero's Melandri and Hayden? You know they still have got bucket loads of talent so don't count em out just yet.
Chris Vermeulen put another strong effort in, in his bid to get to grips with the GSV-R, no one can take a top 10 placing away when riders such as Melandri and Hayden are behind you, lets hope to bigger things from the young aussie and to add to that so far, Colin Edwards is really the only mordern day rider to make the switch from World Superbikes to MotoGP and do anything with it.
One more thing to consider though is that is testing, some teams maybe testing a new chassis, different tyres, slightly altered feul mapping, new suspension, all of which my not be allowing them to be going as fast as they could, so we could see those times drop even more on the final day.
So with 11 days and 6 hours and 33mins (seconds keep chainging) to go, i for one can't fricken wait, it's gonna be big, will update tomoorow with the final days test results.
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Originally Posted by Drew
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