Official IRTA Test At Jerez, Day 2

The weather managed to play havoc again at the second day of the official Irta test at Jerez, with much of this morning's session lost entirely to fog. Once again, Suzuki's Kousuke Akiyoshi was the only rider to brave the unwelcoming conditions, the rest of the teams choosing to remain in the safety of the garages, waiting for the weather to improve. That improvement started around lunchtime, and soon afterwards, everyone was out trying to make up for the time they had lost yesterday and today.

By the time the faster times were being set, it was the two riders most heavily tipped to win the 2007 championship who sat at the top of the timesheets, Yamaha's Valentino Rossi just holding an edge from Honda's Dani Pedrosa. It looked like the session might end that way too, until Marco Melandri repeated yesterday's feat of stealing the top spot, running a lap of 1'40.383. Rossi took second fastest, 0.025 seconds behind, but nearly 2/10ths ahead of Dani Pedrosa.

The biggest surprise was Alex Hofmann's 4th fastest time on the Pramac d'Antin Ducati, over a tenth behind Pedrosa, ahead of Melandri's team mate Toni Elias. Casey Stoner was the second fastest Ducati in 6th ahead of Carlos Checa and Randy de Puniet on the Kawasaki. Colin Edwards was down in 9th, ahead of Makoto Tamada, who has seemingly got the Dunlops working well, and Nicky Hayden, who must be very disappointed to be down in 11th spot. Shinya Nakano took 12th spot on the Konica Minolta Honda, ahead of Chris Vermeulen on the Suzuki, down in 13th, and the last rider to be within a second of Melandri's fastest time.

Loris Capirossi followed in 14th, ahead of Olivier Jacque and Kenny Roberts Jr. Alex Barros took 17th spot ahead of Sylvain Guintoli. The Ilmor's brought up the rear, 4 seconds behind Melandri, a long way behind, but getting closer each test.

Here's a list of who was on qualifiers and who wasn't for as far as I have been able to find out:
Marco Melandri - Qualifier
Valentino Rossi - unknown, but he insinuated he used a race tire
Dani Pedrosa - unknown, but probably a qualifier
Alex Hofmann - Qualifier
Toni Elias - Qualifier
Casey Stoner- Race tire
Carlos Checa - unknown, but probably a race tire
Randy de Puniet - Qualifier
Colin Edwards - Race tire
Makoto Tamada - unknown
Nicky Hayden - Race tire
Shinya Nakano- Race tire
Chris Vermeulen - Race tire
Loris Capirossi - Race tire
Olivier Jacque - Race tire
Kenny Roberts Jr. - unknown, but probably a race tire
Alex Barros - Race tire
Sylvain Guintoli - unknown
Shinichi Ito - unknown
Kousuke Akiyoshi - unknown, but probably a race tire
Vittoriano Guareschi - unknown
Jeremy McWilliams - Race tire
Andrew Pitt - Race tire