Any such victory might even come with Honda's pneumatic-valve engine, since Pedrosa's fastest laps of the day came after 17.00, when he combined his new tyres with the 'pneumatic' for the first time.

The delayed pneumatic-valve design has been race-developed by team-mate Nicky Hayden since Donington Park, but Pedrosa - a double 2008 race winner and former championship contender - has been waiting for performance and reliability to be improved before making the leap.

That moment could be fast approaching after the Spaniard clocked a 1min 34.652secs best with the pneumatic - 0.827secs quicker than his best race lap on Michelin tyres and 0.252secs under the fastest race lap of all, set by (Bridgestone-shod) Misano winner Valentino Rossi. Repsol confirmed that Pedrosa's best lap was set with race tyres.

That lap is especially impressive since Monday marked the first (known) time that a pneumatic-valve Honda has used Bridgestone tyres (who knows what may have happened behind closed doors in Japan).

Nevertheless, Pedrosa gave little away in terms of his future plans for racing with the engine and still appears in no hurry to make the change.

"The bike that has the engine with pneumatic valves is very different, something I am not used to because it is a bit more aggressive and I do not have so much feeling," said Pedrosa. "It is not so gentle. It has other strong points, although there is still work to do on the set up, because the other [valve-spring] bike is more tuned. I did not do a lot of laps, but the sensations have not been bad at all."

"Today's test session was important and Dani's feeling with the Bridgestone tyres was positive," confirmed team manager Kazuhiko Yamano. "He started the session with the valve-spring engine and then switched to the pneumatic-valve engine. The character of these two bikes is different but Dani was faster with the pneumatic-valve engine, his lap times improved a lot. Of course, there are positive and negative points with the engine which we will now analyse."

Pedrosa will make his Bridgestone race debut during the inaugural Indianapolis Grand prix on September 12-14.

Hayden, who missed the race and test due to a heel injury, will remain on Michelin tyres for the final five rounds of 2008.

Gresini's Shinya Nakano, who has piloted a Bridgestone-shod valve-spring factory Honda for the past two rounds, set the second fastest lap time during Monday's test, 0.794secs slower than Pedrosa's pneumatic pace.

As well as Pedrosa and Nakano, Kawasaki riders John Hopkins and Anthony West plus Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) and Alex de Angelis (Gresini Honda) were also present on Monday.