Colin Edwards has made his long-awaited test debut aboard the NGM Forward Suter-BMW machine he will ride in the 2012 MotoGP World Championship as he completed 39 laps at Jerez.
The American made a belated first appearance on the CRT bike around the Spanish circuit having skipped track action since injuring his shoulder in the accident that claimed the life of Marco Simoncelli at Sepang last month.
Sharing the track with Ivan Silva on the Inmotec and Yonny Hernandez on the BQR Kawasaki, Edwards was comfortably fastest of the MotoGP bikes with an unofficial best effort of 1min 43.9secs.
However, the American remained one second slower than the fastest Moto2 rider of the day, Scott Redding, and was just over four seconds off his own qualifying time at Jerez riding the 800cc Tech 3 Yamaha earlier this year.
Silva, recently crowned CEV Stock Extreme Champion, posted a lap of 1min 45.5, while Hernandez's best was 1min 45.7secs.
Also on track was Ducati, with Franco Battiani and Carlos Checa assuming rider duties in the absence of Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden.
No lap times were disclosed, with Checa taking to Twitter to merely state 'nice experience, different feelings in sunny Jerez', though GPOne.com suggests the Spaniard lapped at 1min 41.0secs.
source: crash
