The three-day Sepang MotoGP test - the final on track outing of 2005 for Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki teams - has ended with the shock result of class rookie Dani Pedrosa setting the Wednesday pace, meaning that the 250cc World Champion has taken just four days on an RCV to top a MotoGP timesheet.
However, the final day ranking was influenced by the weather with half wet/half dry conditions ruling out most of the morning running, before a heavy downpour at lunchtime at least allowed several riders to test full wet weather tyres.
Thereafter the circuit dried, although temperatures were much lower after the rain and most riders felt that grip levels had changed, but even that couldn't stop Pedrosa improving on his Tuesday lap time by 0.38secs as he topped the Wednesday timesheets by just 0.02secs from Repsol Honda team-mate Nicky Hayden.
Overall, Pedrosa finished the test with the third fastest time - just 0.16secs behind world champion Valentino Rossi's Tuesday time and a mere 0.12secs from the top Honda of Marco Melandri (also set on Tuesday) - after having also lapped 0.383secs inside Hayden's race lap record from September's Malaysian Grand Prix.
Speaking after his 57 Wednesday laps, Pedrosa admitted that he had 'surprised himself' this week - and was particularly pleased with how he was managing to slide the 250bhp bike so early in his MotoGP career.
"I surprised myself this week," began Dani, who first rode the RCV during a one day outing at Valencia earlier this month. "I was riding this track sliding with the tyre they gave me. I tried three different tyres today and at the end I began to feel the difference with each tyre. I could understand where the limit of the slide was. Also how the tyres work when they are new and when they have done many laps."
Pedrosa also used today's rain to conduct his first ever wet weather test aboard an RCV. The 20-year old Spaniard was surprised by how easy the V5 powered machine handled the conditions in comparison to the RS250R-W he raced to his second 250cc World Championship this season.
"It was much different riding this bike on wet tyres. I was surprised by how much grip they have in the corners, but I was sliding on the straights when accelerating," he explained. "Even under braking the rear end of the bike weaves from side to side and you feel it in the handlebars. But I didn't do too many laps but I was really happy with the feeling in the wet.
"It was a very positive experience but I'm tired, very, very tired. I think I will have to rest for five days when I get home to get over it," confessed the triple world champion.
The MotoGP winter test ban will begin on December 1 and run until January 20, after which testing will resume at Sepang. Honda, the only manufacturer not to have tested a prototype 2006 machine this week, is expected to unveil its new RC211V at the January outing.
Meanwhile, rival manufacturer Ducati is currently conducting its own three-day test session, at Jerez in Spain, with the new 2006 spec Desmosedici. That test also concludes today (Wednesday).
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