Andrea Dovizioso worked on his own in today`s practice, the third and final timed session for the MotoGP riders this weekend at the circuit of Sepang, Malaysia. He was the only representative from the Repsol Honda Team there after his teammate, Dani Pedrosa, decided to end his practice a day early. Dani returned to Spain after feeling some pain in his left knee, the one that was operated on in December last year.
Pedrosa fell on the second corner of the Phillip Island circuit during the Australian GP last October. In spite of having to end his practice sessions before the scheduled time, the Repsol Honda Team rider was pleased with the results and developments made over the two days he spent on his motorbike.
When he arrived in Barcelona Dani Pedrosa was seen by his specialist doctors so that they could make a good evaluación of the state of his knee. After a check up he was advised to give the knee total rest so that it can recover completely.
Andrea Dovizioso, who spent the first day trying to set up the riding position on his official Honda RC212V, then attempted to get the right set up on the whole bike made constant improvements over the whole three days of work. The Italian Repsol Honda Team rider set a time that was almost two seconds faster than the one he set on the first day. In spite of this Dovizioso was cautious insisting that he must carry on working hard, together with his team, so as to get closer to the fastest times set by the best riders in this category. Andrea did a total of 54 laps today in Malaysia, setting his best time on lap 35.
The practice sessions in Malaysia are now over and the riders will have another break for the next thirty days as the MotoGP teams will not be back on the tracks until 1st – 3rd March in Qatar.
Andrea Dovizioso >> Audio
“We focused on bike set up and decided the way to follow concerning the chassis. We understood a lot of things during these three days and I’m very confident. We need more work to adapt the machine to the tyres, this is a very important point. Concerning the engine, my feeling is that we need a smoother power delivery. Today it was really hot and it was very demanding out there from a physical point of view, especially after a break of more than two months. I did a long run of eleven laps to understand better the machine and the tyres and collect data. All in all, we have done a very good job and everybody in the team is very motivated.”
