It has not been a good morning for Valentino Rossi. The Movistar Yamaha man has smashed up the 2016-chassied YZR-M1 he was meant to ride for the next two days, launching at the turn ten scenery and doing some serious damage to it, if not himself.
The Doctor has four, well three now, bikes to ride today and tomorrow in a various different specs but Yamaha aren’t telling the likes of us what they are or in which order they are going to be ridden.
Maverick Vinales has been out using a new aero package on what we believe to be the 2017/18 hybrid bike and is so far rattling around fourth on the timesheets. It looks a lot like the Ducati one which is wingy…
New champion Marc Marquez hasn’t yet tried the all-new RC213V but put in a time on lap four which was faster than the best lap of the race on Sunday and then dropped it to a 1’30.673 but has been up to his usual near-crashing antics.
Biggest surprise of the morning so far was Jack Miller’s debut on the Pramac Ducati. Not wishing to piss about, Miller put in a 1’31.276 on his 31st lap to go quicker than he did in the race on his works-spec RC213V. Good work, digger.
In not much of a surprise, Alvaro Bautista crashed early on and has been taken to hospital for pre-cautionary checks. His brand-new-to-him Ducati GP17 was smoking like a nun at a football match during his first laps and it then spat him off during a subsequent run.
Honda rookies Franco Morbidelli, and Taka Nakagami are slowly easing into their work with 1’33.301 and 1’33.765 lap respectively while Xavier Simeon, riding with a still-injured hand, is on a 1’35.331.
Scott Redding has turned in 41 laps on Sam Lowes’ Aprilia and is 1.644s off Marquez pace so far but there will have been a lot of getting comfortable work to do for him.
Ducati haven’t brought a brand new Desmosedici so Andrea Dovizoso and Jorge Lorenzo are using GP17s with new parts, as is Danilo Petrucci. Miller is on a GP17 while the Tito Rabat and Simeon are on GP16s, as is Karel Abraham.
Neither of the Suzuki riders are out today as they have the squits.
