Marquez tops Jerez test day

Marc Marquez was the quickest rider today in the post race test at the Jerez circuit, ahead of the Yamaha duo of Cal Crutchlow and Jorge Lorenzo.

With no rest for the wicked the riders were back out this morning after a tolling 27 lap race yesterday and it was arguably the most wicked of the riders, Marc Marquez, who was fastest on the back of his controversially gained second place yesterday.

Marquez topped the timesheets with a best lap of 1:38.824. His lap time from today was a tenth of second faster than his qualifying time. He posted the lap on his 27th of the 63 laps that he did.

Marquez ran 63 laps despite not having any new parts to test, instead the Repsol Honda duo worked on traction and set-ups.

Cal Crutchlow was the second fastest rider of the day, and the Brit was testing a new updated frame on his satellite Yamaha. Despite feeling the effects of his Saturday crashes, Cal found himself less than a tenth off Marquez’ time.

Crutchlow’s Monster Yamaha Tech3 team mate Bradley Smith finished his day early happy with his work, and around three and a half tenths faster than he was in qualifying. Smith was testing the frame which Crutchlow has been using so far this season.

The busiest rider of the day was reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo who posted 81 laps on his way to finshing third place, in an effort to close the gap to the Repsol Honda’s.

Both Lorenzo and and his team mate Valentino Rossi were testing two different chassis specs. Rossi ended the day in fifth position, just over a half a second behind Marquez.

Factory Ducati riders Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden were today on the “lab bike” that Michele Pirro has been testing, and raced on Sunday, and both saw notable results. In positive signs for Ducati both riders were under a second behind Marquez, and Dovi was less than 0.2 tenths off of Valentino Rossi.

CRT riders were busy testing new chassis’ or continuing to work on the Magneti Marelli electronics packages available to all CRT teams at the start of the season.

The majority of the field did their best laps before 2pm, but Valentino Rossi, Claudio Corti and Danilo Petrucci were exceptions to this.