ROSSI FASTEST ON DAY 2 OF 2013 MOTOGP JEREZ TEST

After half the day was lost due to damp conditions (but not wet enough for a full wet tyre test), Rossi joined the other riders in venturing out for the afternoon and finished with a best lap of 1'39.525, a mere 15 thousands of a second quicker than team mate Lorenzo. The final placings mark the first time Rossi had topped any MotoGP session since first practice for last year's British Grand Prix at Silverstone. For Monday's final day of the Jerez test, both Rossi and Lorenzo intend to run new chassis.

Dani Pedrosa was the day's leading Repsol Honda Team bike in fourth, ahead of Ducati Team's Andrea Dovizioso who ran several new small parts. The second Repsol bike of Marc Márquez finished seventh overall.

Sixth was GO&FUN Honda Gresini's Álvaro Bautista, who missed over an hour of running following a crash towards the end of the afternoon. While testing different suspension components to that of yesterday, the Spaniard lost control at Sito Pons corner and picked up small fractures in the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand. Bautista is expected to be back in action on Monday.

LCR Honda MotoGP's Stefan Bradl, Energy T.I. Pramac Racing Team's Andrea Iannone and Ducati Team's Nicky Hayden rounded out the top ten, but both the German and Italian endured crashes during the day. All riders had hoped for either fully wet or fully dry conditions in order to conduct proper comparisons for setup changes, although the former was preferable. That was certainly the case for rookies Bradley Smith and Bryan Staring, plus Danilo Petrucci, who was running a new chassis for Came IodaRacing Project.

Leading CRT was Héctor Barberá in 11th position, ahead of Tech 3's Smith, Power Electronics Aspar's Aleix Espargaró and Ioda's Petrucci. Incidentally, Espargaró sampled a single wet lap in the closing stages but elected to return straight to the pits, whereas teammate Randy de Puniet - who ended the day in 16th place, behind Ducati Test Team rider Michele Pirro - was caught out and crashed.

Rounding out the top 20 were NGM Mobile Forward Racing's Claudio Corti, Ignite Pramac Racing Team's Ben Spies, Cardion AB Motoracing's Karel Abraham and PBM's Yonny Hernández.

Australia's Bryan Staring (GO&FUN Honda Gresini CRT) finished the day 21st overall, with a best lap in the changeable conditions of 1'42.107.

Staring beat home NGM Mobile Forward's Colin Edwards, Avintia Blusens's Hiroshi Aoyama, Paul Bird Motorsport's Michael Laverty, and the second Ioda bike of Lukáš Pešek, who was the slowest runner in the 25-bike field who tested at Jerez.

Monday brings the last day of pre-season testing before the 2013 MotoGP season commences in Qatar on April 7th.