It’s not clever to read too much into pre-season testing. But it can be fun to jump to conclusions just for the hell of it, in the knowledge that it’s a bit meaningless. After all, it’s only motorsport.

That said, there’s not much fun to had with the times coming out of the first Formula 1 test of the year, at Valencia this week. Team Lotus aren’t running until tomorrow; McLaren, Force India and Virgin Racing are using last year’s car. It’s all a bit scrappy, but things will tidy up as the circus visits Jerez, Barcelona and Bahrain in the coming weeks.

MotoGP

Luckily, there’s fun to be had with MotoGP, which started testing at Sepang today.

Like the hope that Suzuki have found some pace, despite having scaled back to a one-bike entry for Alvaro Bautista. He finished the day 6th fastest. Who wouldn’t like to see the blue bikes back fighting at the front?

Skip back a year, though, and we see something similar: Loris Capirossi finished 4th on the first timed day of the Sepang test, on a Suzuki. And the 2010 bike didn’t exactly bring the team much success. Or indeed any success at all.

What about the top of the timesheets then? Three words: Casey Stoner, Honda. That combination has been much-fancied since it was confirmed last year, and it’s still much-fancied.

However, Jorge Lorenzo was the fastest man when he brought his day’s running to a close, about an hour before the end of the session. Stoner then went on to beat Lorenzo’s time, but the #1 fell no further down the order than 2nd – albeit 0.4 seconds off Stoner’s best.

The other men in the top five – Dani Pedrosa, Marco Simoncelli and Ben Spies – don’t look out of place.

But that does mean that Ducati had a bad day – or rather, they didn’t have a fast day, which is not necessarily the same thing. Valentino Rossi continues to struggle with his shoulder, so it’s no surprise that he was down in 12th. But it’s curious that Rossi was faster than Nicky Hayden, and that Randy de Puniet on the satellite Pramac machine was the fastest Ducati.

Curious, but not significant. Hayden came top in the 2008 official test, but that season he managed just two podiums and ended up third Honda in the standings. It just goes to show: it doesn’t count until the season begins.