James Toseland finds form in Jerez

British rider James Toseland put a turbulent winter behind him to finish just outside of the top ten on the opening day of testing in Jerez today.

A best lap of 1.41.122 in a long 83-lap stint left the double World Superbike champion in 11th place but only 0.073s off the top ten.

Toseland was only 1.3s off Jorge Lorenzo’s superb speed at the head of the leaderboard as he managed to take a big step in regaining his confidence following his massive 125mph crash in Sepang in early February.

Toseland told MCN: “Today was much better and I finally felt like I was making some big progress with the bike and the tyres.    

“My right arm, which I hurt in the Sepang crash, is now 99.9 per cent right and after the track dried following the early rain, it was really the first time I’ve been able to properly concentrate on testing since that first morning in Malaysia.”

Toseland was running in his new Monster Yamaha Tech 3 livery for the first time today, and he was only 0.6s slower than team-mate Colin Edwards.

For most of the day he was running comfortably in the top ten and he said: “The positive us I was able to do some competitive lap times really for the first time since last November.

“I was only a second off the guys at the front, and the gap has been much bigger with all the problems I’ve had.  And for most of the day I was hanging around seventh and eighth place, which is much higher than where I have been.”

Texan Edwards was again impressive as he ended up fifth fastest. He clocked a best time of 1.40.759 to finish 0.007s off fourth place.