Marco Simoncelli finished his first test as a MotoGP rider tenth out of twelve at Valencia on Wednesday and second fastest of the four 250cc graduates.
The San Carlo Honda Gresini rider set a best lap time 1.9sec from the top, 0.9sec behind experienced team-mate Marco Melandri and 0.069sec behind Hector Barbera, who proved to be the quickest of the ex-quarter-litre riders.
“Even if today I was a bit tired I had fun and the feeling improved,” said Simoncelli. “Also the rhythm was not bad so I'm happy. The confidence with the bike grows lap by lap even if I still don't feel the machine very well as I struggle in braking in the first part of the turn and so I cannot exit fast.
“So at the moment the main issue remains the braking.
“All in all the balance of these three days is positive, I worked well with the Honda technicians. They are very cooperative. We share the same target and it's nice to work like this. Now that the rookies test have been confirmed I look forward to knowing when the next test will be,” added Simoncelli, referring to the extra rookie test now planned for Sepang in December.
