By Peter McLaren
The Briton, riding a black 2007 Yamaha "the same spec as used at Valencia" and wearing red and white leathers, was one of the first out on track for the start of the three-day test.
Toseland went on to complete 29 laps, despite a small fall, before rain descended at 2pm. By that point, JT had dropped his best lap time from a 2min 9.472secs to a 2mins 5.438secs, placing him tenth and 2.405secs behind pace setter
Randy de Puniet, who also fell.
"It's all new - the bike, the tyres, the suspension and the circuit - but it's nice to get out there and have a proper test on a GP bike," said James, speaking inside the Tech 3 pit. "I had a few laps on the [990cc] Honda and Ducati a few years ago so it was nice to get a full day in, or at least before the rain came, and I was quite pleased with the reduction in my lap time."
Toseland also spent some of his early laps following new team-mate
Colin Edwards, a five year
MotoGP 'veteran'.
"Colin is a good friend of mine. I was his team-mate back at Castrol Honda. He was in front for me this morning for a bit to show me the lines and he also sat me down a couple of times today to give me a couple of pointers," confirmed the #52. "He's hopefully going to teach me everything he knows, because he's got a lot of experience."
Edwards later explained the gesture.
"It's like a golf swing. If you're just running around on a new track on your own you, you might learn a few bad habits - and then not be able to shake them off," the Texan told
Crash.net. "I waited for James when I first went out this morning, he got in behind me and I kinda showed him the correct two metres to be in at least - this track is so huge, it took me three years to learn - so hopefully it gave him a little bit of a head start… It's a lot of fun working with James."
