The low temperatures and above all, the wind, have played a leading role in the first free practice session of the Valencia Grand Prix. Strong winds made the riders’ work on the track difficult, who on the first day, opted to be cautious, which led to this afternoon’s times falling almost two seconds short of the best time clocked up on this track.
The Repsol Honda Team riders got off to a positive start in the free practice of the Valencia Grand Prix, the race that will bring the 2009 season to an end. Dani Pedrosa, who has a total of four wins on the Ricardo Tormo Circuit and who won in MotoGP in 2007, started this initial contact with the circuit at a good pace, keeping within the first four best times during the whole practice hour. At the top of the timesheet at several points in the session, the Spanish Repsol Honda Team rider finished with the third best time, behind Stoner and Lorenzo.
On the first day, as usual, Pedrosa focused on working on the set up of his bike and on choosing the tyres he will use in Sunday’s race. His team mate, Andrea Dovizioso, with the eighth best time of the day, was a second and a half off the best time clocked up by Australia’s Stoner. The wind and the set up of his Honda RC212V have been his main concerns today, as the wind caused the front wheel of his bike to be very jumpy, tending to loose too much contact with the floor when accelerating.
Dani Pedrosa, 1‘33.241 secs, 28 laps, 112 km. >> Audio
“For a first practice session, this was OK today and we completed some valuable laps to famliarise ourselves to this circuit again. It was really windy out there and this affected the machine more in some corners than others – like in the third sector where it was quite difficult to control the bike. Still, we have time to solve this tomorrow. Also, it’s good that we got used to the windy conditions because it looks like we’ll have them for the whole weekend. The track surface was not totally clean, but actually the grip was good and the Bridgestone tyres were working well. There’s a gap to the riders in front and we need to make some improvements for tomorrow so that we’ve got the best chance of qualifying well. I really want to win this race – it’s more important to me than finishing third in the championship – so we need to work really hard to give us a good chance on Sunday.”
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’34.382 secs, 29 laps, 116 km. >> Audio
“We got through quite a lot of work this afternoon, focusing mainly on some options for suspension set-up. We didn’t have the time to test all the ideas we have for this circuit, so tomorrow we will continue working. I’m confident we can improve and move forward because eighth is not where I want to be. The track conditions today were not too bad, but the strong wind made controlling of the bike more difficult and this took some getting used to. Here the bike usually tends to wheelie because there are a lot of slow corners, and the strong wind accentuated this issue. The characteristics of this circuit mean that it takes a while to get into a good rhythm, and so we did more laps on each run out of the pits – around 10-13 laps each time, which is more than we do at other circuits. Tomorrow we’ll focus on getting a good qualifying position to give us the best chance on Sunday.”
