Test started with track being damped and temperatures ranging from 10-14 degree Celsius. For the first hour nobody posted a flying lap and team waited out for the track to dry completely.

It was Ducati who showed command on opening day of Jerez test. It was Danilo Petrucci who swapped times with rest of the riders, before settling on top, in late hours of the day with a time of 1:37.968.

Behind him was Ducati of Dovizioso who finished the day second fastest before crashing moments before the chequered flag.

Surprisingly the leading Honda was not the works Honda but LCR Honda of Takaaki Nakagami who was 0.028 ahead of the leading Ducati of Maverick Vinales and further 0.141s behind was works Honda of Marquez.

Lap wise it was Suzuki of Alex Rins who piled up most laps and was man on the mission with 87 and behind him was Alma Pramac Ducati of Jack Miller with 72 laps. Iannone with his new bike seemed struggling a bit with only 24 laps on the clock.

Headlines of the Day:

Lorenzo has final gotten rid of Wrist pain, though not fully recovered but not bad as Valencia tests. Most astounding part of the day was when Lorenzo lead the timing sheets with almost 3 hours left on the clock. It was Spaniard on his new Honda who was leading the pack. But it was his old teammate, Dovizioso who snatched the lead from him and went fastest by 0.194s. Proving the haters wrong, Lorenzo is finding his Mojo and adapting with Honda bike much sooner than expected.

Another theory of people which was proved wrong today was Honda brought whole new parts for Lorenzo to test. The parts included a new test seat and tank support. With Lorenzo massively improving with minor improvement to the tank of his Ducati 2018 bike. Honda didn’t give second thought in giving him the opportunity to find improvements in that area. Most of the MotoGP pundits speculated that it will take more than a year for Lorenzo to earn his place in Honda and find parts according to his liking.

At the end Lorenzo finished P7 a 0.781s off Petrucci.

Joan Mir Suzuki’ rookie suffered a huge crashed at turn 7 bringing the red flags. But the rider was fortunately okay and well in shape. After spending some time in garage he went out again on track and finished the day 10^th fastest.

Rookies: Joan Mir was the fastest rookie and finished the session P10 four places ahead of other impressive rookie Fransesco Bagnaia.

KTM woes continued…. Zarco is definitely not finding it easy with his new team. KTM struggled again today like Valencia, Zarco finished the session 2.2s off the top pace at P18 whereas his teammate Pol Espargaro wasn’t much faster on P15.

Yamaha: Maverick Vinales finished a strong P4 with 0.4s off the pace and was threating the top position with 58 laps under his belt for the day.

Valentino Rossi tested on old tires and his run was paused due to a technical difficulty and his bike had to be carried to the garage on truck. He finished session P17 a second off the teammate’s time.

Yamaha focused on engine and haven’t brought any new parts for the Jerez tests except the engine. According to the team the want to rectify the mistakes they made last year by not testing the engine much.

Newly found team Petronas Yamaha SRT had a good day of running as well with Franco Morbidelli finished strongly on P6 and Rookie Fabio Quartararo ended day on P16.

NOTE:
Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda)and Aliex Espargaro (Aprilia)missed the testing as former suffering from an injury while later was hospititlized due to gastrititis.
Bradly Smith for Aprilia , Sylvain Guintoli  for Suzuki and Alvaro Bautista as replacement for Pirro(undergoing surgery) at Ducatiwere on track.

Time Sheet: