until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
VR46 Ducati rider Fabio Di Giannantonio topped MotoGP's first official in-season test at Jerez, on the Monday following the Spanish Grand Prix.
Di Giannantonio scored just nine points over a weekend of mixed fortunes, and in firing in a 1m36.405s went quicker than he had done during the weekend - lapping four tenths off the lap record.
What was a Ducati 1-2-3-4 coming into the final minutes was broken up by Aprilia's Maverick Vinales, clocking in a time within a tenth of Di Giannantonio late on.
As a result, moving down a spot each in the top five were Franco Morbidelli, making up for testing time lost to his pre-season injury with 82 laps, and Spanish GP victory duellists Pecco Bagnaia and Marc Marquez.
Bagnaia ran the fewest laps of anybody with 44.
Brad Binder led KTM's contingent in sixth place, just 0.234s down on Di Giannantonio.
The second Aprilia of Aleix Espargaro finished seventh, he and Vinales having worked on seating position during the day - in addition to apparent modifications to the ride-height adjustment device for the starts.
Espargaro was very encouraged by the work, and this was also the case for Vinales - albeit he and his crew also discovered an apparent issue with his spare RS-GP, which he felt had compromised his Spanish GP after they'd decided to use it following his sprint crash.
The curtain falls on the #JerezTest! 🏁
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 29, 2024
A late late improvement sees Maverick leap to 2nd as @FabioDiggia49's 1:36.405 remains the best lap time of the day⏱️#MotoGP pic.twitter.com/WYArjyieTF
Jorge Martin, who crashed out of the Spanish GP lead at Turn 6, had a fall at Turn 9 this time, and there was also a crash for fellow Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi - and one for Tech3 Gas Gas rider Augusto Fernandez in the closing minutes.
LCR Honda's Johann Zarco led the mileage rankings with 89 laps, followed by 85 for Fabio Quartararo. Quartararo's Yamaha team trialled a "really different" new chassis, a new swingarm and new triple-wing aero, which it hopes to have homologated for use in races soon.
Pol Espargaro placed 19th in his runout as KTM's test rider, after his colleague Dani Pedrosa had raced during the weekend - with Espargaro's own wildcard outing coming up at Mugello.
The bike that Honda tester Stefan Bradl raced in the Spanish GP was made available to regulars - but was tested by the satellite LCR team instead of the main outfit. Joan Mir revealed he had tried it in private testing earlier and didn't regard it as the right direction.
Instead, Mir was buoyed by something he sampled here in the test - describing it as a step in the right direction in terms of concept and clarifying it was something on the engine side (but not a full-on new engine).
