Day one wrap: Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix

Jorge Lorenzo promised on Thursday that the shackles would be off this weekend after winning the MotoGP title in Malaysia last Sunday.

In Friday’s action at the 2010 IVECO Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix, the Spaniard was as good as his word.

The 23-year-old, who took to the 4.448km Phillip Island layout with the words ‘World Champion’ engraved on his brake lever, sent a message to the rest of the field in first practice, topping the timesheets ahead of Ducati’s Casey Stoner.

Heavy rain throughout Friday morning flooding the track between Turns 11 and 12 but a two-hour delay didn’t dampen his enthusiasm – or that of a 20,100-strong crowd  – and  after Stoner set the pace in the early stages, Lorenzo fired in a session-best 1:41.146 on the 12th of his 20 laps.

Stoner improved to within 0.334seconds with 12 minutes remaining, but Lorenzo was comfortable enough at the front to retreat to the warmth of his garage with three minutes left in the hour-long session.

"Today was the first day on the bike after we won the title and I am still very happy. We can't stop now, we have to keep going and finish this season in the best way possible, working for the future," said Lorenzo. "The conditions today were really hard - wet, cold and windy.

"I am very happy to be so fast in rain, because it didn't use to be this way, but we need to be prepared because it could be a hard weekend. I would like to ride in the dry, of course, but we will have to wait and see what happens."

Stoner was 0.151 seconds ahead of teammate Nicky Hayden, while Gresini Honda team-mates Marco Simoncelli and Marco Melandri completed the top five.

“The conditions were difficult today and obviously we had the big delay too, which is not the ideal way to prepare," said Stoner. "Also we would prefer a fully wet session but it started to dry towards the end and that denied us the opportunity to confirm the settings or get a full understanding of the conditions.

"Other than the wind, which made things very difficult, it was quite a successful day. We made a couple of changes and I feel we made a little improvement with the bike but again because of the conditions we weren't able to get much of a direction.

"Hopefully tomorrow we get consistent weather, whatever it may be, so that we can get a proper idea of our set-up in either the wet or the dry.”

Valentino Rossi was seventh for Yamaha, 1.480 seconds off the pace of his teammate, but the news was worse for Honda’s Dani Pedrosa.

The Spaniard, who lies second in the championship, was in obvious discomfort as he rode for the first time since breaking his left collarbone in Japan a fortnight ago. He managed just seven laps, finishing 16th out of the 17 riders and over 10 seconds off Lorenzo’s benchmark time.

The new Moto2 class brought 39 riders out on the 600cc machinery, with Alex de Angelis winning a late battle with Scott Redding to top the times on 1:36.285 – five seconds faster than their bigger MotoGP cousins as the track dried in pale sunshine.

Victorian Wayne Maxwell produced a fine effort to be 19th on debut in the class, while Alex Cudlin from Taree in New South Wales also did well as he stepped across from the world endurance scene to be 28th – one spot better than compatriot and series full-timer Ant West.

“To roll out of pit lane and be part of the grand prix paddock alongside the world class riders was a great feeling,” 27-year-old Maxwell said. “I feel comfortable on the bike already, so to mix it up with them over the weekend would be even better.”

In the 125’s it was Briton Bradley Smith who led the way from title-chasing Marc Marquez, with Joel Taylor of Camden, NSW the best of the five Aussie wild cards in 19th place.

Meanwhile, the afternoon's scheduled national support class race program was cancelled to allow the three world championship classes to complete their allocated one-hour practice sessions.

As a result, only qualifying was held in the Superbike, Supersport and the Glen Cameron Historic categories on Friday morning, with pole position claimed by Jamie Stauffer (Ducati), Troy Herfoss (Suzuki) and Rob Phillis (Suzuki) respectively.

The race program commences on Saturday at 4.25pm with the first of three eight-lap Superbike races (instead of the original four), followed by the one and only outings for the Supersport and Historic classes this weekend.

All the practice and qualifying sessions for the support classes were held in treacherous conditions, with a number of riders falling victim to the slick track.

The biggest casualty was veteran Suzuki Superbike rider Shawn Giles, who broke his collarbone after a high-speed spill in the opening Superbike practice session.