After the first two sessions of free training, Dani Pedrosa got his 4th best time of the day, 251 milliseconds away from Australian Casey Stoner. His teammate in the Repsol Honda Team Nicky Hayden was 8th, half a second away from the Australian rider, a day in which the first seventeen riders to classify crossed the line during the same second.
The Repsol riders improved their results as the day went on, and during the second free training session Dani Pedrosa reached second place. In the end, the repsol rider was overtaken by Makoto Tamada who, using qualification tyres, ended up registering the second best time of the day, and by Valentino Rossi, though he was happy with the improvements throughout the day.
At the other end of the box, Nicky Hayden was also competitive on the demanding Portugese track, and was happy with the improvements throughout the day. At tomorrow’s definitive timed session the Repsol rider will for the third time try to get in the first row on the starting grid.250cc riders Julián Simón and Shuhei Aoyama finished in 8th and 12th place, respectively.
The Spaniard was satisfied with the performance of his motorbike, managing competitive times in both the free session and the timed session, though tomorrow he will be working with his team on adjustments that may allow him get a better position on the grid. Shuhei Aoyama had a few problems – in the morning he managed 6th place, but in the afternoon he made some adjustments to his gearbox that didn’t give the result he had predicted. Tomorrow he will ride again with the adjustments that have shown to adapt to the particularities of this track, in order to get a better position.In 125cc things did not come out as expected, due to fall by Bradley Smith just a few seconds away from the end of the free training session, and engine problems in Esteve Rabat’s Honda halfway through the timed session have ended up conditioning the Repsol riders’ training session.
The Englishman hit the ground when braking just before the slow chicane on the Estoril track, when he was having a last try at improving his position, preventing him from getting any further than 19th position. In the afternoon he improved adjustments, though tomorrow he must concentrate on solving the problems he has with the last part of the circuit, in which he loses too much time, and which ended up leaving him in 19th place.
For his Repsol Honda Team 125 teammate Esteve Rabat the first day at Estoril was going quite well – after finishing 7th in the morning, he managed to climb to 4th place in the afternoon session. However, engine problems with his Honda halted his progress, and ended up one place behind his teammate.n he was having a last try at improving his time – this prevented him from getting any further than 19th place.
In the afternoon he improved adjustments, though tomorrow he will have to concentrate on solving the problems he has with the last part of the circuit, in which he loses too much time, and which ended up leaving him in 19th place.
