On arrival at the Jerez circuit for the final day of the three-day MotoGP test at the 4.423 km track this morning the riders were greeted by cool overcast conditions following a rain shower but the temperature slowly increased to reach an ambient 19 degrees with the track top at 16. Despite a strong prevailing wind the change in warmer weather allowed the teams and riders to make up much of the time lost to rain and a cold track on the opening two days.

Repsol Honda factory team rider Nicky Hayden worked on chassis development and tyre testing today. Once happy with the set up of his RC212V the 2006 MotoGP World Champion went out on track to set the fastest lap of the day on Michelin qualifying tyres, the fastest of the three-day test. His time of 1m 38.848s was half a second faster than pole position time set for the Spanish GP at Jerez last year.

Hayden’s team-mate, Spaniard Dani Pedrosa is still carrying a hand injury sustained during testing in January. But the determined Pedrosa returned to the track today after sitting out the wet day on Sunday. Pedrosa and his team technicians worked on his RC212V to try set up variations that would ease the stress on his injured hand. The injury has hampered Pedrosa’s pre-season test programme but the tough young man from Barcelona will be in better shape, but not 100% ready, at the next MotoGP test, at Qatar on February 28-29, the final test before racing begins in earnest at Qatar on March 9.

Andrea Dovizioso (JiR Scot Honda) enjoyed a very positive final day. The young Italian spent virtually the whole day testing tyres for Michelin and was impressed with the results. Dovi, new to MotoGP machinery, had struggled to get the best out of qualifying tyres but today with the latest Michelin’s and minor suspension adjustments he mastered the soft rubber setting third fastest time of the day.

Randy De Puniet took his LCR Honda RC212V to fourth fastest time of the day. Like Dovizioso he has struggled to get the best out of qualifying tyres but over the three-days of testing the team technicians have worked steadily towards providing the Frenchman with the set up he needs for the ultra-important GP qualifying sessions. LCR Honda team owner-manager Lucio Cecchinello was pleased with the way his team has worked to give De Puniet a competitive motorcycle. “I am very happy that we have found the reasons why Randy couldn’t go fast on qualifying tyres. There were several small setting points we changed to arrive at this conclusion. We are very close now, competitive and ready for the Qatar test.”  Said Cecchinello.

The San Carlo Gresini Honda squad continued their solid pre-season progress with both riders setting consistent fast times all day while testing tyres for supplier Bridgestone. MotoGP debutante De Angelis has been a revelation aboard the big 800cc RC212V four-stroke so far this winter. The young Sanmarinese was holding second place on the time sheets at one point eventually ending the day with eighth fastest time.

De Angelis’ team-mate, Japanese star Shinya Nakano has found a spiritual home at Gresini Honda and his lap times reflect the progress he has made by switching to the vastly experienced San Carlo sponsored team. Nakano ended his day four-tenths of a second behind De Angelis.

Honda rider lap times and quotes.

Nicky Hayden, Repsol Honda: 1m 38.848s - on lap 81 of 82.
 “It’s definitely been a really positive and productive three days. We had high hopes coming here because when we tested here in November the bike worked pretty good and Michelin tyres normally work good at Jerez, so this is a good track for us, also there’s no big long straightaways. The wind here has made it tough, the conditions haven’t been easy, but I do feel more comfortable on this year’s bike in the wind. The team really worked hard and made some good moves and good decisions. We didn’t make a lot of big changes, we just got closer to race settings, tried a couple of qualifiers and did a 25 lap run. The chassis seems to be working good and also the tyres are working good. We tried a few different tyre options, and we’re still checking data between the 16 and 16.5 rears. But the show hasn’t started yet, we’ll find out what everybody’s really got and what we’re in for when we get to Qatar but we leave here pretty happy. At the Qatar tests we’ll see how it is under the lights and dial everything in for the first race.”

Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda: 1m 41.699s – on lap 33 of 35. “After this morning’s rain we were finally able to do some laps and it’s been a pretty good day for us. We were happy that we were able to test in the dry after yesterday’s rain and we did similar work to what we did on Saturday. My right hand feels the same as it did on Saturday. We’ve been trying to make some changes to the bike to make it easier for the hand and that’s been positive. But we weren’t able to try too many things because it’s been so windy, which makes it dangerous to ride fast, so it’s been difficult to improve. I don’t think the hand will be 100 per cent when we get to Qatar but I hope it will be better than it is now. We have ten days before the test, so we’ll do as much therapy as we can in order to be ready for the tests and for the race. The last test at Qatar will be difficult, especially for us because we still have a lot of work to do. And it will also be tough because we’ll be riding under floodlights for the first time, so we have to adapt to that. I hope the track conditions will be good at night and the track temperature not too low.”

Andrea Dovizioso, JiR Scot Honda: 1m 39.313s – on lap 56 of 65. “Despite the bad weather this morning we concentrated our attention this afternoon on qualifying tyres, which Michelin gave us in quantity and in different types. After finding the right settings we went out for a few runs, which confirmed to us the good performance of these tyres on my 800cc Honda and now I can grow in confidence with the MotoGP bike on qualifying tyres, which we didn’t use in the 250cc class. The team worked very well together and I think we’re now in position to do even better at the final test.”

Randy De Puniet, LCR Honda: 1m 39.351s – on lap 68 of 68. “Today we focused our work mainly on tyres testing getting good results. Today’s conditions were not perfect so we started at 2 pm and the wind was very strong. However we tested some rear tyres improving our pace and, at the end of the day, I came out on qualifiers improving my lap time as well thus I feel pretty satisfied. This track is too short to develop the new engine so we will work it out in Qatar”.

Alex De Angelis, San Carlo, Honda Gresini: 1m 39.932s – on lap 54 of 56. “I am very happy with my race pace. I did 20 consecutive laps on the same set of tyres ad at the end was still able to run at 1m 41s. I also tested two types of qualifying tyres for Bridgestone, one new set and one in an old specification we had tried before.  They were quite similar in performance but I set my best lap on the old qualifying tyre but the new type was quite close in performance. The feel from the new engine is positive and I wish I had the same engine at Sepang so I could test it on a high speed track before we arrived here. We will get that done at Qatar.”

Shinya Nakano, San Carlo, Honda Gresini: 1m 40.333s – on lap 66 of 66. “I’m a little disappointed with today my lap time today it was not much better than on day one of the test. Today we used the same setting as on day one but something felt different which I didn’t understand. Maybe this has something to do with all the changes we tried for the wet session yesterday. We are not so bad on race tyres, on all three-days, but we have to improve a few things on  set up with qualifying tyres when we get to Qatar, we have to be more aggressive.”