The first practice session finish with Stoner third, Dovizioso fourth and Aoyama twelfth in a day cancelled by mid day due to the oil spilled on track by a Moto2 rider
The seventh round of the season started at the Assen circuit with the rain that had been forecasted determining the first free practice, where Casey Stoner finished third, followed by Andrea Dovizioso in fourth and Dani Pedrosa’s replacement, Hiroshi Aoyama, twelfth. This results were obtained only in the first free session, as the failure of a rider of the intermediate category caused his bike to spill oil over a long part of the track and the organizers where not able to clean the asphalt on time for the second practice session to take place.
Focused on finding the set-up for their Hondas RC212V under wet conditions, the Repsol Honda Team riders were competitive at the Dutch track, although they could not get through a great part of their testing program. Casey Stoner —third— completed twelve laps, finishing 491 thousandths behind the fastest time, set by Marco Simoncelli.
Behind the Australian finished Andrea Dovizioso, who after completing 17 laps set a time 604 thousandths behind his countryman Simoncelli. The most recent arrival to the Repsol Honda Team —Japan’s Hiro Aoyama competes in this Grand Prix replacing injured Dani Pedrosa—, completed 19 laps to the Dutch track and finished in twelfth position of the times sheet.
Andrea Dovizioso >> Audio
FP1 – 1:49.640, 17 laps, 77 km.
“This morning I found a good feeling with the bike and we were able to be fast from the beginning. There was not so much grip so between the first and the second exits we made a change to improve this and in the second outing the bike worked better. We had planned another change in the afternoon session as we have margin to improve but today we rode well without taking too many risks. It’s a shame we couldn’t test this afternoon after the oil spill on track but FP3 will be longer tomorrow to recover this time. Depending on the weather, we will continue where we left off today”.
Casey Stoner >> Audio
FP1 -1:49.527, 12 laps, 55 km.
“This morning’s session was good to get some more data on the wet set up as we still don’t have that much experience in these conditions on the RC212V. We worked on getting the general set up of the bike a little better and also with the edge of the tyre where we wanted to try and create more heat. We concentrated on this in the morning session and the last exit was a little better but unfortunately we didn’t have enough laps to warm the tyre up and find any real advantage. This afternoon we wanted to continue with this but unfortunately due to an oil spill on track from the Moto2 class we had to forefit the session and we’ll come back tomorrow and see what we can do”.
Hiroshi Aoyama >> Audio
FP1 – 1:53.132, 19 laps, 86 km.
“This morning I was a little nervous because it was my first time on the Honda factory bike and also in Assen on a MotoGP bike as I missed the race last year due to injury. It was a pity because in wet conditions I couldn’t compare my bike with this one, but from the beginning the feeling was not so bad, the bike seems a little bit smoother than my one, but I cannot say much at the moment, I simply need more laps on the bike. Unfortunately, this afternoon the practice was cancelled due to track conditions but tomorrow we will a have longer session which is good. The plan was for me to adapt to the bike more than actually making any changes on the bike to suit me, so we will stick to this plan also for tomorrow and I hope to improve the feeling and go faster”.
