A positive start for the two Repsol Honda Team riders in the first free MotoGP practice session in the Dutch GP. After their first contact with the circuit of Assen both Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso had positive impressions at the end of the session.
Dani Pedrosa, after total rest the last ten days so as to recover from the injuries on his right leg, returned to racing in good physical shape after the tough weekend two weeks ago in the GP de Catalunya. Pedrosa, who had to have pain-killing injections on each of the three days raing in Barcelona, got back to work today and set some good times right from the start. The Spanish Repsol Honda Team rider did not need another pain-killing injection to get the best out of his Honda RC212V, setting the 6th fastest time. Pedrosa rode the whole session with the modified chassis that Honda made available to him in Barcelona, the same one that his teammate Dovizioso used during practice on the Monday after the race. Dani had two motorbikes with the new chassis in the pits.
Andrea Dovizioso got back into his work clothes today after setting the fastest time on the day`s practice after the GP de Catalunya. It is worth mentioning the fact that Dovizioso was riding a bike with the modified chassis then, and the Italian Repsol Honda Team continued his work with it today on one of his bikes. Andrea set faster and faster times in today`s free practice session, until at the end of the 60 minutes he was 5th, just ahead of his teammate Dani Pedrosa.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’38.194 seg, 26 vueltas, 118 km >> Audio
“Riding felt much better today than it did at the last race in Barcelona which is a positive sign. Even without any painkilling injection I was able to ride with quite a good pace this afternoon so I’m very happy about that. Now, after riding, it doesn’t feel great and I have some pain, but that’s to be expected. With some ice on it and some rest tonight, I’m expecting to feel in good shape for tomorrow’s sessions. The feeling with the new chassis is good and I immediately felt much more comfortable than in Barcelona. I still need to learn more about the new chassis, but the initial feeling is positive, with improvements under braking and stability. Obviously, I need to do more laps to better understand its performance so we’ll continue with that tomorrow”.
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’38.092 seg, 27 vueltas, 123 km
“The final result from the session was pretty reasonable – 5th place and two tenths from the front is a decent start. We’ll be looking to make some more improvements tomorrow though because I’m not totally satisfied with how the practice went and we struggled a little to find a good feeling with the bike, in particular under braking and on corner entry. Now we’ll analyse the data and come up with a plan for tomorrow, possibly working with the weight distribution to improve the set-up. It was actually quite a difficult practice session for me because I wasn’t feeling too well, so I’ll get checked out at the Clinica Mobile and be ready for tomorrow”.
