Sebastián Porto and Dani Pedrosa, on record course in Jerez.
First test day for the 250cc in Jerez and the Repsol riders continue setting the pace in the class.
At mild temperatures but with unstable weather conditions and the rain threatening to appear over the southern Spanish track, the Repsol riders have been the main figures of first of the two planned test days. Despite the track being opened for the riders at 10 o’clock in the morning, they didn’t start lapping until past midday, when the track had finally dried after the rain of the previous day.The session went by without any incident, with Sebastián Porto and Dani Pedrosa taking turns in the lead of the time sheets and lapping under the fastest time set by Porto in 2004 on this circuit with a 250cc machine.
At the end of the day, the Argentinean rider and his Aprilia had set the fastest time after a total of 54 laps, followed by Dani Pedrosa, who set the second fastest time after 68 laps. The third place was for Pedrosa’s teammate, Hiroshi Aoyama, who was four tenths slower than Porto and covered a total of 89 laps – the highest number of laps covered by any rider today.Further in the back, Jorge Lorenzo, was eighth, a bit over a second slower than Porto, Randy De Puniet ninth, Hector Barberá eleventh and Alex Debón thirteenth.
Repsol rider´s comments:
Sebastián Porto
1st, 1’43.403, 54 laps:
‘The truth is that things didn’t work out well today. Due to the bad weather conditions, we haven’t been able to make use of the whole time we had planned to test, but even though we made good use of the day setting a fast time. I’m very happy with how the bike is evolving, although it still has to improve a bit as regards the engine. The bike is working well in general and we have improved the setting as the weather was getting better. We have planned to make a race simulation tomorrow and continue testing things in order to face the season with as much information as possible.’
Randy De Puniet
9th, 1’44.772, 78 laps:
‘Things didn’t work out well today. We’ve spent the morning working on the new bike, but one hour before the end of the session we hand a problem with the engine that forced us to stop. We decided not to start with the second bike because it had the old configuration and we’re looking for the best set-up for the new one. Leaving the problem aside, I’m quite satisfied with how everything is working out. Both the team and the bike are getting better every day. Tomorrow we’ll continue working as planned with the two new bikes. I hope to improve, obviously weather allowing.’
Dani Pedrosa
2nd, 1’43.700, 68 laps:
‘At the beginning of the session we had the same problems with the carburettor as we did last week in Catalunya. That’s why we decided to park bike number one again and focus on number two. From that moment on we started to test things with a lot more ease. Unfortunately, our working plan has been delayed because we only had one bike. We’ll have to keep on working tomorrow on what we have been testing this afternoon, because the temperature and the wind weren’t much help. We are a bit behind the times we set in January, but I think that tomorrow we’ll be lapping in 1’42s if it doesn’t rain.’
Hiroshi Aoyama
3rd, 1’43.831, 89 laps:
‘My fastest lap hasn’t been bad at all; I’m quite happy. The track was dirty in the morning because it had rained at night, but it got better along the day. I radically changed the set-up of the bike compared to the last tests in Catalunya and we’ve been working in the right direction. I must say that I also feel better on this track, it adapts much better to my riding style; things probably come out easier here. I think that tomorrow most of the riders will be improving their times and I hope to be able to stay in the top.’
Classification
- S.PORTO (APRILIA) 1:43.403
- D.PEDROSA (HONDA 1:43.700
- H.AOYAMA (HONDA) 1:43.831
- A.DE ANGELIS (APRILIA) 1:43.981
- C.STONER (APRILIA) 1:44.290
- A.DOVIZIOSO (HONDA) 1:44.532
- Y.TAKAHASHI (HONDA) 1:44.544
- J.LORENZO (HONDA) 1:44.655
- R.DE PUNIET (APRILIA) 1:44.772
- R.LOCATELLI (APRILIA) 1:44.784
