Repsol Honda Team riders take up positions in Holland.
Nicky Hayden fourth and Dani Pedrosa fifth, sharing the second row of the grid tomorrow.
The rain and cold temperatures lost protagonism in Assen today, allowing for a normal development of the second practice day at the Dutch Grand Prix. In the premier class, the Repsol Honda Team riders managed to improve considerably compared to yesterday, with Nicky Hayden fourth and Dani Pedrosa fifth at the end of the qualifying session. Pedrosa was one of the first to get into the top of the time sheets but during the last minutes, while he was setting his fastest times on qualifying tyres, the traffic on the track hindered him from getting a place on the front row. The leader of the overall standings, Nicky Hayden, improving along the weekend, made a big step forward this afternoon clocking the fourth fastest time, thus getting a good position to get involved in the fight for the victory tomorrow.
In the 250cc, Shuhei Aoyama surprised again with his quick adaptation to the Dutch track, this time getting a place on the front row of the starting grid. Shuhei, who was fifteenth in the morning’s free session, set the fourth fastest time in the afternoon and will join Lorenzo, De Angelis and Dovizioso on tomorrow’s front row. His team mate Martín Cárdenas, who continues with a constant progression, was sixteenth this morning. In the afternoon, Martín managed to increase his pace progressively, finally setting the twelfth fastest time, third row of the starting grid.In the minor class, Bradley Smith made a good start of the day, setting the fifteenth fastest time in the morning practice. In the afternoon however, the young Repsol rider was only able to improve his time by a few tenths of a second, while his rivals made a considerable step forward so that Smith dropped back to the twenty-second place, sixth row of the starting grid.
Rider´s comments
Dani Pedrosa:
‘Today was a little bit better than yesterday. Fifth is not ideal but it’s ok really, especially compared to my position on the grid in the last race at Catalunya. The qualifying session today was not so bad, although I’m still struggling a little with getting the best from the qualifying tyres at some circuits. I just need to get more experience of this. On my final fast lap I had a little bit of traffic towards the end, but then it actually helped at the beginning of the lap, so I don’t think that was the reason for my time. Anyway, tomorrow is the important day of course, as always; it’s going be important to get a good start. After another day on the track I’ve become a little bit more used to the new layout here, but to me it’s still not the same as the old Assen.’
Nicky Hayden:
‘I’m looking forward to this race – we’ll try and get up there, have some fun and see what we can do. It would have been nice to be on the front row because it looks as though it’s going to be hard to pass here, especially in the first section of the lap because there’s only really one line around there. We’re definitely going to have to plan on getting a good start tomorrow and get up front because some of the guys have got a really fast race pace and I haven’t been able to get into the 1m 37s on race tyres this afternoon, which is a little frustrating. We’re definitely going to have to make some changes tonight and see what we can do tomorrow. My qualifying lap wasn’t real special and on my last run I made a couple of little mistakes and my splits were all fastest on different laps – it wasn’t like I just put one really clean lap together – and that was down to the rider. Still, tomorrow’s where it counts and we’ll see what we can do.’
Shuhei Aoyama:
‘I’m obviously happier than yesterday, although I do not forget that the race is tomorrow. Things didn’t work out well during the morning practice but it was my fault; I wasn’t much concentrated and I didn’t push hard enough. But everything went much better in the afternoon, I focussed to give my best and the times were good. We have a good setup and we’re almost sure about the tyres to use. Now I hope to make a good start tomorrow and to stay within the top group from the beginning.’
Martín Cárdenas:
‘I think that it’s getting better all the time. I’m feeling more and more confident with the bike and eventually I managed to improve my times and qualify among the top twelve which had been my initial idea, since I always have some trouble in qualifying. We have managed to get the setup ready in this practice, and I think that it’s quite good for the race. The tyres look good after several laps, so I think that we’ve made a good choice.’
Bradley Smith:
‘I don’t know which position I finished at the moment but I improved on this morning, only by a little bit but I still improved. I had to do the lap time on my own because I didn’t find anyone to follow and that left us pretty short time to do the fast laps so I kind of rushed around and didn’t mind about passing the other riders just trying to get a clean lap in, which I did but I think that if I would have been able to get a slipstream it would have been at least three tenths faster because the wind out there is quite strong, and specially on those long straights you loose quite a bit on top speed. I’m happy but we need a little bit more. Hopefully we got a good starting position for the race and go from there.’
Standings
MotoGP
- J.Hopkins (Suzuki) 1’36.411
- S.Nakano (Kawasaki) 1’36.424
- C.Edwards (Yamaha) 1’36.755
- N.Hayden (Honda) 1’36.758
- D.Pedrosa (Honda) 1’36.993
250
- J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 1’40.007
- A.de Angelis (Aprilia) 1’40.137
- A.Dovizioso (Honda) 1’41.194
- S.Aoyama (Honda) 1’41.260
- Y.Takahashi (Honda) 1’41.279
12. M.Cárdenas (Honda) 1’41.708
125
- M.Kallio (KTM) 1’44.532
- A.Bautista (Aprilia) 1’44.580
- L.Pesek (Derbi) 1’44.838
- S.Gadea (Aprilia) 1’44.874
- M.Pasini (Aprilia) 1’44.925
22. B.Smith (Honda) 1’46.505
