250cc testing concludes at MotoGP Official Test in Jerez Tuesday 20th February – Jerez, Spain – MotoGP Official Test The first section of the MotoGP Official Test at Jerez drew to a close today, with the 250cc teams the first to take to the track this week. Yesterday’s session was a far more productive affair than the second day of quarter-litre testing, as overnight and morning rain left the riders with little effective practice time. No rider improved on their previous day’s lap time, and some teams even chose to bring their Jerez visit to an early close instead of riding in the wet. Hector Barbera drew first blood on day one, topping the timesheets with a time of 1’43.451. On his final lap, the Spaniard was just under two tenths of a second off Jorge Lorenzo’s pole position time for last year’s race, with the World Champion himself finishing second fastest. Lorenzo was less than a tenth of a second slower than his former factory Aprilia team-mate, who now rides for Team Toth. 2006 World Championship runner-up Andrea Dovizioso was the third of three riders to go round in under 1’44 this week, in much better condition than that which he found himself in last time round at Valencia. Coming back from a bout of flu, the Humangest Honda rider was closely followed by Alex de Angelis as the two continued to shape up for a title challenge this season. Of the talented riders moving up from 125cc in 2007, Thomas Luthi has been one of the big success stories during preseason. The Swiss rider was on form again at the MotoGP Official Test, under half a second off Barbera’s hot lap. For Julian Simon, the gods seem to be conspiring to prevent his appearance for Repsol Honda in a 250cc race. Having last year suffered an injury when pencilled in to replace the retiring Sebas Porto, now the Spaniard has experienced another setback as a result of a crash yesterday. Simon was trapped under his bike on turn four, suffering a dislocated shoulder which led to an afternoon spent in the Clinica Mobile. He flew to Barcelona this morning to see Dr. Xavier Mir at the Clinica Dexeus, who will further analyse his injury over the coming days. Prior to this, the Honda factory man had been looking good, completing the top six ahead of team-mate Shuhei Aoyama. The Japanese 2006 Rookie Of The Year also elected against riding today, although this was more due to personal choice than injury. Alvaro Bautista, Marco Simoncelli and Hiroshi Aoyama rounded off the top ten on the combined timesheet, with the latter putting in the most laps of any rider and finishing as fastest on day two with a best of 1’45.250. Anthony West finally had a chance to ride his new near-factory Aprilia over the past two days. The Australian had been scheduled to make his debut for Team Sicilia two weeks ago at Catalunya, but instead had to wait until this week to start the latest chapter in his intriguing career. Never one to let a bit of dampness halt his progress, wet weather specialist West showed that he is willing to put in the hard graft to adapt to his new prototype. The 250cc teams have another Official Test next week in Qatar, although the action at Jerez is just getting started. Tomorrow sees the turn of the 125cc teams to undertake more testing, ahead of the arrival of the MotoGP class on Friday for three days of fine tuning, culminating in Sunday’s 40-minute ‘qualifying session’ spectacular.