Casey Stoner leads in Valencia MotoGP

Ducati Marlboro rider Casey Stoner recovered from his non-start in Sunday's Valencia MotoGP Grand Prix to lead the timesheet at the same Ricardo Tormo Circuit on Monday, as the post-season test began.

Valentino Rossi rolled out a new prototype M1 on which he completed 37 laps, recording a best time which left him just 0.166s down on Stoner's time. Stoner went round in a best time of 1 minute 32.660, which topped the timesheet and left him 0.025s clear of the rest of the field.

At such a close margin, Jorge Lorenzo's intentions were clearly stated in second place as the 2009 World Championship runner-up kept a close tab on Stoner. The Spaniard was just over 0.1s off his Sunday qualifying time on his factory Yamaha machine.

Within a second of Stoner's time was his Ducati Marlboro team-mate Nicky Hayden. So too was Ben Spies, whose first outing for Monster Yamaha Tech 3 was a productive day as the Texan completed 50 laps.

Of the upcoming 250cc riders, Marco Simoncelli was the fastest on day one of the test, completing 51 laps with a best time just over 2.5s off Stoner. Dani Pedrosa ensured it was the Championship top four occupying the same spots on the first day. The Spaniard is testing two Honda bikes, one with the Showa suspension with which he started the season and one with the Ohlins system.