MotoGP: Quatar Megatest Day 1

All of MotoGP's 2007 riders were on track during the first day of testing at Losail, giving us the chance to compare the entire grid for the forthcoming season.
Colin Edwards continued his string of excellent winter performances, topping the timesheets with a 1:56.774, more than half a second faster than the fastest 990cc race lap set by Valentino Rossi last year. This provides even more proof that the new 800cc bikes are staggeringly quick.
It remains to be seen whether Edwards can translate this kind of performance into a successful race weekend, but the Yamaha team must be the early season favourites.
Rossi was second fastest, with a 1:56.891. He will be delighted with the speed of the Yamaha, and not remotely troubled by being a tenth slower than his team mate. Valentino doesn't pull out all the stops until he really has to, so he will be concentrating on setting up the chassis and electronics to his liking. He will still be hurting at last year's horrible chatter problems, and determined to prevent the same happening this year.
Casey Stoner, who set pole position at Qatar last year, was an impressive 3rd on his Ducati, just under a tenth slower than Rossi and nearly 4 tenths quicker than his team mate (Capirossi, in 7th place).
Kenny Roberts Jr was an impressive 4th. Ironically, it was Honda's advice that helped to sort the Team KR chassis last year, so it must be embarrassing that KRJR lapped quicker than the HRC machines.
Next up was Nicky Hayden. The Kentucky Kid was not expected to do well this year, as the smooth riding style required by the new 800cc machines is so different to his spectacular rear-sliding dirt-tracker antics. However, the reigning champion has proved to be made of stern stuff, finishing 5 places and 7 tenths quicker than his teeny team-mate Dani Pedrosa, who needs to show a serious improvement if 2007 is going to be the great Rossi/Pedrosa showdown as everybody had expected.
Suzuki will be pleased to see John Hopkins in 5th place, lapping over a second quicker than his fastest race lap last year and breathing a sigh of relief that his terrible form from the Phillip Island test was only a glitch.
The Ilmor bikes are still barking at the postman, finishing 21st and 22nd. Andrew Pitt posted a 2:01.677, while the returning Jeremy McWilliams could only manage a 2:10.341.