Positive day for the Repsol riders at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Dani Pedrosa sets the third fastest time in MotoGP with Hayden in tenth. Aoyama is sixth in the 250cc and Smith sixth in the 125. High temperatures playing the leading role.
Positive first practice day for the Repsol riders at the Catalunya GP. The high temperatures and a short rainfall during the 125cc qualifying practice marked the development of a day that has served to start working on the bikes’ set-ups. It’s been however a quite fruitful day for the Repsol riders considering the third position of Dani Pedrosa in the MotoGP class, the sixth place for Shuhei Aoyama in the 250cc and the sixth place for Bradley Smith in the 125cc.
Dani Pedrosa took the third provisional place in MotoGP behind Valentino Rossi and Kenny Roberts in the combined results of the two free practice sessions staged today. Pedrosa has set consistent lap times, making twenty-five laps in the first session and twenty in the second, setting a lap time that is only 199 thousands of a second behind the fastest time of the day. Dani is happy with his performance considering that it is the first practice day of the event. The track conditions, more favourable for the tyre performance than during the preseason tests, have been of help for this good position which he hopes to be able to confirm during tomorrow’s qualifying session. Nicky Hayden finished tenth, a bit over half a second from the leading position. In any case, the differences are minimal between the top ten.In the 250cc the Repsol Honda has only had one rider on the track, Shuhei Aoyama, after the retirement from competition announced yesterday by the Argentinean rider Sebastián Porto.
The Japanese has defended his options in an excellent way, taking the sixth position on the provisional grid, though hoping to close he gap during tomorrow’s session to be among the top five.The rain fallen a few minutes before the start of the first timed session allowed young Bradley Smith to move up again to the top positions, proving the incredible competitiveness of the Repsol rider on wet asphalt. Twenty-fourth this morning in the first free session, Smith set the sixth fastest time in the afternoon, thus getting a place on the second row of the provisional starting grid. At this Grand Prix Bradley Smith is joined in the pit garage by a fellow-countryman, Daniel Webb, another bright 15-year-old hope of British motorcycle racing who is having his Grand Prix debut here, in Barcelona.
Rider´s comments
Dani Pedrosa: ‘Today went ok, and we were lucky because it was raining at lunchtime but we had almost a full dry practice this afternoon. We’ll see if the weather stays sunshine. Normally on Friday we are not so fast so I’m happy with where we are – the fact that I’ve ridden the bike here before probably helps. Still, we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do tomorrow because for sure everyone will improve. I think the set-up is not so bad and the lap-times are good but we’ll have to see how the laptimes improve tomorrow and see what the weather does. The conditions are much better than the test here in March, because then it was very cold. There are already many fans here, and tomorrow I think we will see the grandstands will be almost full – I think they will enjoy it!’
Nicky Hayden:
‘Obviously we’re not thrilled with our position today and the bottom line is we’re not fast enough here right now. I think we kind of went down a bit of a wrong path this morning so we’ll go back to something different tomorrow morning. Actually I’ve been in this position a lot on Friday and I definitely believe in the guys around me so we’ll come up with some ideas to help us a lot tomorrow. It’s mainly in the long corners that I don’t have enough corner speed – the front feels like it wants to run wide and the rear wants to spin a lot. There are a lot of long corners here and if you’re slow in those corners you lose a lot of time. So we’ll sit down and try to make a big step up in the morning.
Nicky Hayden:
‘Obviously we’re not thrilled with our position today and the bottom line is we’re not fast enough here right now. I think we kind of went down a bit of a wrong path this morning so we’ll go back to something different tomorrow morning. Actually I’ve been in this position a lot on Friday and I definitely believe in the guys around me so we’ll come up with some ideas to help us a lot tomorrow. It’s mainly in the long corners that I don’t have enough corner speed – the front feels like it wants to run wide and the rear wants to spin a lot. There are a lot of long corners here and if you’re slow in those corners you lose a lot of time. So we’ll sit down and try to make a big step up in the morning.
Bradley Smith:
‘More or less happy. The second session was better than the first but still we had a good result and it’s a provisional sixth position on the grid so you got to be happy. It’s another second row like Mugello, but hopefully I don’t have the same second qualifying as in Mugello – thirty-second was not good. I hope to be able to pull out a good laptime for tomorrow and then I have a better opportunity for a good race. Hopefully I can have a good race because it’s like a home race for me and for the rest of the team. I’m looking forward to it!’
