Petrucci tops wet first day at Phillip Island

Danilo Petrucci topped a weather-affected first day of MotoGP testing at Phillip Island in Australia.

Weather played a major part in the day’s running, rain making it impossible for riders to set representative times throughout most of session.

It wasn’t inside the last hour that times started to fall, Pramac rider Petrucci first going fastest with a 1m32.769s, before improving to a low 1m31s, and the ultimately a 1m31.764s, which was comfortably the quickest time of the day.

Maverick Vinales (Suzuki) and Bradley Smith (Tech 3 Yamaha) both improved late to finish second and third fastest, albeit 0.7s and 0.8s behind the pace-setter.

Petrucci’s teammate Scott Redding wound up fourth, having sat second with 15 minutes of the day remaining, with Cal Crutchlow fifth on the LCR Honda.

Valentino Rossi was best of the factory Yamahas with the sixth best time, while Jack Miller only completed six laps on his return from injury, but still managed the ninth best time.

Andrea Iannone was best of the factory Ducatis in 10th, while Marc Marquez led the way for Repsol Honda with the 12th fastest time, despite having been fastest with an hour left to run.

Full testing times:

Pos	Rider	Team	Fastest lap	Gap	Laps
1	Danilo Petrucci	Octo Pramac Yakhnich	1:31.764		12
2	Maverick Vinales	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	1:32.483	0.719	20
3	Bradley Smith	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	1:32.590	0.826	27
4	Scott Redding	Octo Pramac Yakhnich	1:32.864	1.100	41
5	Cal Crutchlow	LCR Honda	1:32.948	1.184	21
6	Valentino Rossi	Movistar Yamaha MotoGP	1:33.088	1.324	27
7	Pol Espargaro	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	1:33.126	1.362	20
8	Yonny Hernandez	Aspar MotoGP Team	1:33.841	2.077	6
9	Jack Miller	Marc VDS Racing Team	1:33.992	2.228	6
10	Andrea Iannone	Ducati Team	1:34.049	2.285	9
11	Tito Rabat	EG 0.0 Marc VDS	1:35.273	3.509	29
12	Marc Marquez	Repsol Honda Team	1:35.354	3.590	20
13	Aleix Espargaro	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	1:35.584	3.820	2
14	Eugene Laverty	Aspar MotoGP Team	1:35.679	3.915	10
15	Takuya Tsuda	Suzuki Test Team	1:36.166	4.402	6
16	Jorge Lorenzo	Movistar Yamaha MotoGP	1:39.825	8.061	24
17	Dani Pedrosa	Repsol Honda Team	1:40.138	8.374	15
18	Andrea Dovizioso	Ducati Team	no time