Repsol rider leads the way after opening two practice sessions in Germany —one in the wet and one in the dry. Stoner close behind in morning run and fourth in the afternoon.
One of the circuits particularly suited to Dani Pedrosa is Sachsenring, at which the Repsol rider will look to take his first win of the season following a run of six podiums in the current campaign. Pedrosa struck first at the German track to lead the way in both practice sessions on Friday —the second of which was undertaken on a wet track after an intense downpour minutes before the start. Teammate Casey Stoner was second in the dry run and 0.180 off Pedrosa in the afternoon.
The Repsol Honda Team riders made a strong start to round eight of the season, the German Grand Prix, and concluded the day with Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner occupying the top two spots in the combined standings. They did so by virtue of their speedy times in the dry morning session, in which the Spaniard stopped the clock with a best time of 1’22.357.
The afternoon session was hit by a brief downpour just minutes before its start. With the track completely wet, Dani Pedrosa went out for a stint and was once again the fastest rider around. After 45 minutes, Pedrosa had completed 21 laps and recorded a best time of 1’32.228. Casey Stoner rode 14 laps, and he was fourth in the session —0.180 down on Pedrosa. Separating the two were Stefan Bradl and Jorge Lorenzo.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
FP1 – 1:22.357, 22 laps, 81 km.
FP2 – 1:32.228, 21 laps, 77 km.
“The weekend has started pretty good for us; I felt comfortable in both the dry and wet conditions, but we only managed half of our plan today. We wanted to test the hard rear tyres in the afternoon, because in theory the hardest compound should be working better in this track where you are leaning to the left a long time, and with the soft the bike slides a lot. Anyway, it’s been also good to try the bike in the wet for one practice session because it looks like the weather will again be very unstable. Today I’ve been using the new chassis we received in Assen and the feeling was ok, but weather permitting, I would like to compare both chassis again tomorrow before qualifying. We’ve had a good start, but we cannot relax; the times are very close here, as usual, and we still have margin to improve”.
Casey Stoner >> Audio
FP1 – 1:22.444, 19 laps, 70 km.
FP2 – 1:32.408, 14 laps, 51 km.
“We were pretty happy in both conditions today. In the dry we felt comfortable and we had a consistently higher pace than the others and we’re confident we can go quite a bit faster so that was definitely a positive. We were struggling a little at the beginning in the wet, we needed to find more rear traction but the conditions weren’t perfect as they were changing throughout the session with some parts of the track drying out and then more rain arriving. It was difficult to get a consistent feeling for the track but we were close to the front and fairly happy. Unfortunately we have some bad chatter in the rear, especially on the right hand corners, both in the wet and dry so we need to improve this before the race”.
