Spies Facebook

Results by the end of Thursday's first MotoGP test under the floodlights at Qatar, showed Valentino Rossi once again quickest on his factory Yamaha YZR-M1 machine.

Valentino Rossi bested second place man Casey Stoner by a healthy 0.3 second advantage with time of 1'55.402. Astonishingly Ben Spies posted the third fastest time of 1'55.954 finishing just over 0.2s behind circuit specialist and triple Qatar race winner Casey Stoner.

Ben Spies Speaks...

These were the only three runners in 1m 55sec range. Ben Spies posted on his Facebook page last night that he "Had a good day.....3rd quickest and felt like we had some left. Let's hope for another good day tomorrow!"

For the MotoGP rookie to feel that there was still more to come bodes well for the battle against Rossi and Stoner when MotoGP kicks off the season on April 11th.