On a sunny day with an air temperature of 34º C and the asphalt at almost 50º C, the first free practice session for the Catalunya MotoGP Grand Prix saw differing results for Dani Pedrosa & Andrea Dovizioso. Whilst the Italian started strongly and was 4th at the end of the session, Dani Pedrosa returned to riding and physical activity affected by the injuries he got at Mugello, Italy, picking one up on the Saturday and falling on the Sunday meaning that he had to leave Tuscany with no points at all.
Pedrosa returned to the competition with a first set of 7 laps, which helped him regain his confidence and pick up the pace. After this the Spanish Repsol Honda Team rider returned to the pits where his team made small adjustments to his motorbike. This was Pedrosa`s routine throughout the whole of the first free session, and one which also saw the rider held back by the painful injury to his right leg. In fact, Pedrosa went to the USP Institut Universitari Dexeus hospital this morning before going to the circuit to have a pain-killing injection, the aim being to temporaraily eliminate the pain. In the end the local hero had done 25 laps – his fastest the last one – and finished 14th two seconds behind the fastest time set by the Italian Valentino Rossi.
On the other side of the Repsol Honda Team pits, there were satisfied looks on everybody`s faces at the end of the first free session. Andrea Dovizioso, in action once again after his good race in the Italian GP where he was 4th just a tenth of a second off the podium, showed his good form and progress on his first contact with the circuit in Catalunya. Just like his teammate, Dovizioso did a first set of consecutive laps – in his case 8 – to pick up the pace, after the ten day break since Mugello. After 12 minutes Andrea was already up to 4th in the classification, behind Stoner, Lorenzo and Rossi. Although he fell back a few places during the session, at the end of the first 60 minutes of practice the Italian had once again moved up to 4th position, after setting his fastest time on lap 25 of the 26 he did.
Dani Pedrosa, 14th 1m 45.043s >> Audio
“It’s my home race and already the atmosphere and support is incredible, but of course this wasn’t one of the best days of riding for me. I had a pain-killing injection before I rode this afternoon but it’s still very uncomfortable on the bike and this means I wasn’t able to ride at my normal pace. MotoGP machines are very physical to ride – it’s not like a street bike – so it’s tough when you are not at full strength. It’s frustrating because this is one of my favourite circuits of the season and also one where I have had a lot of good results. However, we certainly aren’t going to give up. It’s a long season and although today didn’t go too well, we’ll come back tomorrow and see what we can do. ”
Andrea Dovizioso, 4th 1m 43.684s >> Audio
“Today’s result was pretty good and we are not too far from the front which is encouraging – though we still need to close the gap. This afternoon we worked on the set-up of the bike to improve the handling during corner entry and in the turn, which remains our main issue. We tried a different set-up solution on the second bike that worked well and I was able to improve the lap time and reduce the gap to the frontrunners. Fourth place today is a good start but we are still too far from the first three top riders, so we’ll continue to work on this tomorrow.”
