Dani Pedrosa's career-best
MotoGP World Championship season came to a suitably positive conclusion, as he lapped under the official race record to lead Wednesday's Valencia post-season test.
The Spaniard, a race winner around his home circuit over the weekend on the way to cementing the runner-up spot in the overall standings, only made an appearance during the latter stages of the two-day test, riding both the 2012 and 2013 factory RC213V machine.
Completing 30 laps in total, Pedrosa's best time of 1min 32.322secs proved four tenths quicker than second place Cal Crutchlow.
"In the end we were lucky because after almost two days doing nothing due to the bad weather we were able to go out on track for two hours and do the basic work we needed to do to have the first feelings on the new bike," the Repsol Honda rider said.
"It's been a useful test for me; I started with the bike I raced on Sunday and then switched to next year's bike. It's basically the same but with more weight to adapt it to the new regulation for 2013.
“We had pretty good feedback and now the engineers will check the data and analyse if we need to move something on the bike to better adapt to the extra weight - I could feel it on braking and also on the straight.
“Now it's time to relax a little after a strong season and be fresh and ready to start working again in February at Sepang, which will be the first test in 2013.
“It's always good to finish the year and the test in front, but even more to know that everything works well and what we need to do to improve a bike that has finished at a very good level in order to start the next season strongly.”
Pedrosa will next be seen on a
MotoGP bike in February when official pre-season testing gets underway at Sepang in February.