Dani Pedrosa flies low over the British layour in Donington Park.
The Repsol Honda Team rider dominated both practice sessions. Team mate Nicky Hayden, with a new chassis, finishes the first practice day in ninth position.
Positive first practice day for Repsol rider Dani Pedrosa in MotoGP. After 120 minutes of practice he managed to lead the time sheets in both practice sessions. With surprisingly good weather conditions and high temperatures, the MotoGP riders knew how to make good use of the excellent conditions offered today by the asphalt in Donington Park in order to benefit from the good performance of their machines.
Dani Pedrosa, thoroughly working on the settings of his bike together with his team, managed to lead both sessions in the highly contended MotoGP class, while team mate and current leader of the standings Nicky Hayden, set the tenth fastest time in the first session and the ninth in the second. Hayden, immersed in the tests he is carrying out on a new chassis that just arrived from Japan, showed himself optimistic after the practices.
In the 250cc, Shuhei Aoyama made good use of the fact that he already knows the British circuit where he had already raced in 2002 on a 125cc bike to get a position on the second row of the provisional starting grid. Young Shuhei set the seventh fastest time this morning after his first contact wit the British layout. In the afternoon, during the first qualifying session, the Repsol rider set the eighth fastest time after improving the time he had set in the morning by more than a second. Aoyama still has to fine tune his bike, but he is a serious candidate to clinch a place on the podium this weekend in England.
In the minor class, young Bradley Smith has had a good debut at home on this first practice day of the British Grand Prix. Smith surprised everybody setting the eleventh fastest time this morning in the first free practice. In the afternoon, and on a track he knows perfectly well, Bradley was able to improve his times again by almost half a second, taking a place on the fourth row of the provisional starting grid with the fifteenth fastest time.
Rider´s comments
Dani Pedrosa:
‘It went pretty well today and we had a good day of practice. The weather was good, it was warm and the Michelins were working well so I’m happy with how it’s gone. I’m at the top of the times today but I’m not reading too much into this yet. Tomorrow will be important because we’ll learn more about the race tyre choice and we also need to do a good job in qualifying because the times at this track are so close – this is going to be critical for a good race. It’s my first time on a MotoGP at Donington and the RC211V feels very powerful here, especially on the last part of the track. Plus we spend a lot of time braking which is hard for the shoulders and arms – it’s pretty tiring. Still, I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend.’
Nicky Hayden:
‘We were trying a new chassis today and we were testing a few different things on each bike. One felt a lot better on the front and the other felt better on the rear, so hopefully tomorrow we can combine the settings and we’ll be a lot closer. We closed the gap from this morning’s session which is good, though we haven’t started off the first day as fast as we’d have liked again so we’ve still got some work to do here. It’s not that easy though – it’s always a compromise so we’ll come in here tomorrow and try to make a big step. Half a second is quite a lot, and qualifying tomorrow is going to be really important, so we’ll see what we do.’
Shuhei Aoyama:
‘Not a bad result for the first day. But we have to keep on working on the bike’s settings especially on the suspensions, because we still have to improve in this. The tyre choice is quite clear already. I also have to improve tomorrow, but this is a circuit I like and were I enjoy a lot lapping here. I hope to be able to keep a good level tomorrow and to get a good position on the starting grid.’
Bradley Smith:
‘It was definitely very good. To improve a lot from last year in the first session straight away was good and to have more or less a good setting after the day was OK . We still have more to improve but it was definitely good and just being in the position we are is definitely a good confidence-builder. We need to improve tomorrow, just looking at the day it would probably have been possible to improve more today, just with a little bit of luck with the slower riders. But that’s the way it goes, you have thirty minutes to set the fastest time. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully we can repeat the same as today and then we’ll have a good place on the starting grid for the race.’
Standings
MotoGP
- D.Pedrosa (Honda) 1’28.970
- J.Hopkins (Suzuki) 1’29.025
- C.Stoner (Honda) 1’29.064
- M.Melandri (Honda) 1’29.196
- S.Nakano (Kawasaki) 1’29.275
9. N.Hayden (Honda) 1’29.557
250
- J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 1’32.115
- A. de Angelis (Aprilia) 1’32.670
- H.Barberá (Aprilia) 1’32.846
- A.Dovizioso (Honda) 1’32.891
- H.Aoyama (KTM) 1’32.959
8. S.Aoyama (Honda) 1’33.378
125
- A.Bautista (Aprilia) 1’37.228
- M.Kallio (KTM) 1’37.374
- M.Pasini (Aprilia) 1’37.421
- F.Lai (Honda) 1’37.623
- L.Pesek (Derbi) 1’37.796
15. B.Smith (Honda) 1’38.691
