Mapfre Aspar Team Moto2’s Nico Terol made a storming start to the 2013 pre-season as he placed him Suter in front of Italtrans Racing Team’s Julián Simón and Tuenti HP 40’s Pol Espargaró on the first day of Moto2™ testing in Valencia.

Much of the day was about getting back up to speed after the lengthy winter break, as well as adapting bikes to the new 215kg bike and rider minimum weight. And Terol, testing what was predominantly last year’s bike with some chassis upgrades, went fastest with a 1:35’926, just over two hundredths quicker than Simón, who this year starts on a Kalex.

Espargaró, at this point still marked as one of the title favourites, left it late to post his fastest time and go third overall, marginally over four tenths off the top. His team manager Sito Pons had told motogp.com earlier in the day that only small changes had been made to last year’s bike, and that he believed his rider could certainly challenge for the title this year. He commented that Espargaró was “prepared, but it will be up to himself” to win.


Anther title favourite, who should benefit from the minimum weight imposed, is Marc VDS Racing Team’s Scott Redding, as the Brit ended the day in fourth place on his Kalex bike. And staying with the Kalex theme, Simón’s teammate Takaaki Nakagami ousted NGM Mobile Forward Racing’s Simone Corsi into fifth, with the Italian looking strong on the team’s new Speed Up machine.

Terol’s teammate Jordi Torres placed his Suter seventh, ahead of Pons’ Esteve Rabat and Interwetten-Paddock’s Tom Lüthi on his Suter, who will hope to start this season with a similar vein of form as last year. Blusens Avintia’s Toni Elías rounded out the top ten, with new boys Sandro Cortese on his Dynavolt Intact GP machine edging Tech 3 Racing’s Louis Rossi by 0.01s in 24th, just less than 2.8s off the top.

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