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Stoner on top after three days of testing in Valencia
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Desmo, Baby!: Nicky Hayden before the Malaysian Grand Prix in Oct. 2009.
Ducati riders Casey Stoner and Hayden were first and third fastest this week,
after three days of testing in Valencia, Spain. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
The blood-red factory Ducati has been flexing its muscle during this week’s post-Gran Premio Generali de la Comunitat Valenciana, where MotoGP teams held three days of testing.
Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden pulled top times during the stint, where they tested new forks, revised engine configurations and swapped tires.
Stoner ended Wednesday’s final session with an overall best time of 1’31.900, while Hayden pulled third fastest, just a second under Stoner.
The Finn, Kallio, worked with the new aluminum swing arm on his Pramac, just one of Ducati’s satellite bikes, with new teammate Aleix Espargaró coming in seventh fastest after 55 laps. HRC’s Italian rider, Dovi, also made improvements, coming within a second of Stoner's lead. Marco Melandri, back with the San Gresini Team, finished fifth quickest.
Per MotoGP.com, newbie Ben Spies was fourth quickest on day two (not bad!) and had this to say about his entry into the premier class: “I'm really happy with this test. My performance in the race surpassed my expectations and so did the test,” he explained. “I didn't touch the set-up of the bike again and continued mainly working on adapting my style. I feel like I made a lot of progress. My data guy could see on the computer that I was riding with more of a MotoGP style and each day I've made steps and gained confidence with the tires. At the end I put on some tires that had half race distance on them, but I was still able to lap half-a-second faster than Monday. And where I was running regular 1’34.1s in the race I could get into low 1’33s consistently.”
Teammate Colin Edwards was unfortunately sick with a virus and couldn’t test Tuesday. Randy De Puniet, however, worked on his Ohlins suspension and busted out some new tires, clocking a best time of 1’31.111 after 76 laps on Tuesday.
The boys from the 250cc class were all in good form: Héctor Barberá, on the new Aspar Ducati, led the way with a best time of 1’33.787--a couple seconds off Stoner’s pace, while Simoncelli, Álvaro Bautista (on the Rizla with Capirossi) and World Champ Hiroshi Aoyama (on the Interwetten Honda) followed suit.
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