Yamaha Factory Racing Team riders Jorge Lorenzo and new team-mate Ben Spies completed a successful first day of the official MotoGP test at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia today, topping the timesheets as only two of five riders to dip below the 1.33 minute mark . Rain in the morning saw the day’s session delayed until the track had dried with all riders waiting until the afternoon before venturing out onto the circuit.

Reigning 2010 World Champion Lorenzo continued to show the form that delivered the world title this year, taking just five warm up laps to go straight to the top of the timesheets where he remained unbeaten for the entire session. The Mallorcan split his riding time between the 2011 prototype YZR-M1 and an updated version of his 2010 machine.

Taking his first outing as a Yamaha Factory rider, the 2010 ‘Rookie of the Year’ Spies spent the majority of the afternoon riding the 2011 prototype YZR-M1. The American rider and his crew used their inaugural session to focus on the chassis settings of the new bike, moving quickly up the timesheets, delivering consistent fast laps to end as the third fastest rider of the day.

Jorge Lorenzo – No.1 – Position: 1st Time: 1’32.012 Laps: 48
“Today we tried the new chassis on the 2011 M1 which felt good, although it is still to early to say too much about it. We also tried the new Ohlins suspension which felt better to me on the track. The new engine seems to have less wheelie but we will see more tomorrow in the next session.”

Ben Spies – No.11 – Position: 3rd Time: 1’32.878 Laps: 42
“For the first day of testing I’m super happy with the team, a lot of things are new including obviously riding the prototype bike. There are a lot of subtle changes from last year so I spent some time getting used to it along with working with a new Japanese engineer who is very, very good. I had a couple of new mechanics who were learning the ropes as well so it was a lot of learning today. I’m really happy, I can feel the potential of the bike and I think there’s quite a bit more to come.”

Wilco Zeelenberg
Team Manager – Jorge Lorenzo
“2011 has started I would say! We finished the session on top so I think everything went quite well. Our lap times were good and we improved on our qualification time from Sunday’s race. We managed to test everything we wanted to today so tomorrow we will continue with more and see how far Jorge can go.”

Massimo Meregalli
Team Manager – Ben Spies
“As a first day, I think Ben’s crew worked really well. He was very satisfied with the new 2011 prototype YZR-M1 bike which is a good sign. We didn’t make many changes to the setup in the session so it’s clear that we have a good base to work with. Tomorrow we will start to test the 2011 tyres as today Ben used the same ones as he ran for Sunday’s race.

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