The British GP and Donington Park received the riders in the World Championship with the typical local weather: four seasons in one day…rain sun clouds rain and so on all day meaning that the free practice took place in changeable conditions. After a heavy downpour during the 125cc session, the MotoGP riders went out at 14:00 – local time – with fine rain falling on the already wet track. Halfway through the session the sun came out timidly and dried the track bit by bit, and by the end of the practice there were dry zones in between the puddles.
After finishing 3rd in the recent German GP Dani Pedrosa was back on his bike today but riding carefully because this track is very slippery in the wet. The Repsol Honda Team rider started setting slow times in the rain until the halfway stage. At the end of the showers but with a lot of water still left on the asphalt the times set by the Repsol rider began to fall constantly, with improvements lap after lap on the second sector –where he was losing most time against his rivals – until he climbed to the top of the leaderboard on the final lap. Even so at the end of the session Pedrosa said that he was not entirely satisfied with his pace in the rain, admitting that he was slower than his rivals on a completely wet track. Tomorrow if the weather stays the same as today he has to prepare for the race in both dry and wet conditions, which is what exactly what the forecasters say will happen.
His teammate Andrea Dovizioso, after not being able to put in a good performance in Germany because of a defective front tyre – he had to retire when he was 5th – started the weekend at Donington very positively. The Repsol Honda Team`s Italian rider rapidly moved into the leading positions, at both the start in the rain and in the drier time towards the end of the session. In spite of not having got the best out of his wet tyres in the last few minutes saying that he could have ridden faster, Dovizioso expressed his satisfaction, just like his teammate, with the work the team did today.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’38.627 sec, 27 laps, 109 km. >> Audio
“It feels great to be on top today and I’m pleased with how we handled a tricky practice session. The conditions were continually changing and so we needed to make the best use of the track time to learn as much as we can. There are a few areas we can improve upon – such as the feeling from the bike when it’s really wet – and we’ll look at working on the settings for those conditions because the weather doesn’t look so stable for the weekend and we could see more rain on Sunday. It nearly dried out fully towards the end of the session but we stayed on wet tyres for the whole time and I think this was useful because you can have this sort of situation in the race. We’re in reasonable shape for the rest of the weekend and I hope I can be in this position at the end of Sunday afternoon.”
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’39.069 sec, 23 laps, 93 km. >> Audio
“I’m satisfied of the job we did today. Of course we need to tune the set-up and improve the traction in wet conditions, but this was a good way to begin the last British Grand Prix at Donington. The practice started in very wet conditions and I had a good feeling on the bike from the beginning of the session so I’m pleased about that. The track had quite a reasonable level of grip and the pace I could set was good straightaway. Conditions were changing all the time and in the last part of the session when the track was 90 per cent dry, I couldn’t set the fastest lap that I was capable of because I waited for a couple of laps and didn’t use the wet tyres to the maximum when they were new. So I’m confident for tomorrow and I think we have a decent chance of getting a good grid position here.”
