First working day ‘at home’ for the Repsol Honda Team.
Nicky Hayden is fifth in Motegi and Dani Pedrosa fifteenth on this first practice day. Local idol Shuhei Aoyama gets close to the pole position and finished third.
The weather forecast were fortunately wrong today at the Japanese track of Motegi and the typhoon that could have arrived finally did not show up. Even the rain respected the first practice day, although things may change tomorrow with bad weather and even rain. In the MotoGP class, the riders of the Repsol Honda Team finished this first day in back positions while working on the settings of their bikes. During the second free session some riders decided to use qualifying tyres, including Nicky Hayden, who announced today that he has signed a contract for a further two year period with the Repsol Honda Team.
The leader of the 2006 World Championship set the fifth fastest time. Team mate Dani Pedrosa, still recovering from the injury in his right knee, decided not to use qualifying tyres today and focus on preparing the race, finishing in the fifteenth position.In the quarter-of-a-litre class Shuhei Aoyama, rider Repsol Honda Team 250cc. Enjoyed the leading role he played today. An idol in his country, Shuhei draw the attention of his home crowd this afternoon, with an exciting and thrilling fight with his brother Hiroshi – KTM Red Bull- halfway the practice session. In the final instants the Japanese rider of the Repsol Honda Team 250cc. was one of the riders involved in the close fight for the best time. Finally, a slower rider hindered Shuhei in one of his best laps from setting the provisional pole. The youngest of the Aoyama family finished third, two tenths behind the fastest time set by Jorge Lorenzo.
David De Gea also had a positive first contact with his team and with a bike that he had never used before. His times have been improving constantly throughout both of the sessions and he hopes to continue tomorrow with his learning process. He finished twentieth todayIn the minor class, Repsol rider Bradley Smith had his first contact with the Japanese track. The Briton had an average start of the Grand Prix on a track which the rider considers to be difficult to learn, with a single valid line and several complicated points. In the morning, during the first free practice session, Smith set the twenty-fifth fastest time and in the afternoon, in the first qualifying practice he was twenty-fourth. Bradley will try to improve positions tomorrow in a grid which will be filled with local riders starting as ‘wild cards’.
Rider´s comments:
Nicky Hayden,
50 laps, 240’05 Km.
‘I struggled a lot at this track last year and I’ve come out today and almost picked up where I left off unfortunately. It wasn’t really that great a day. My rhythm isn’t very good and my pace, consistently, is not as fast as I’d like, so we’ve got a lot of work to do tonight because this is such an important race. I’ve got a lot of fans rooting for me here and I went to visit the local US Air Force base on Wednesday and a lot of those guys are coming out to support me. So I definitely want to get things turned around for tomorrow and pick up my speed a lot. I really trust in the guys in my team so we’ll be working hard to improve things.’
Dani Pedrosa,
50 laps, 240’05 Km.
‘Today we just wanted to get into the rhythm of this track. It was important to concentrate on testing race tyres today because the weather forecast is not looking so nice which means we must use the dry track time as usefully as possible. It’s my first time at Motegi on a MotoGP bike and there are some differences to the 250cc – mainly on the straights because they feel much shorter and everything arrives much quicker. Plus you arrive at the hard braking zones faster. My leg feels quite a lot better but I still have some pain and I must work to keep the flexibility. I like this track so I’m looking forward to tomorrow&’
Shuhei Aoyama,
42 laps, 201’64 Km.
‘I’m happy but I would have preferred the pole position. I think that if I would have pushed harder I would have set the fastest time. The fight with my brother was not real fun. We passed me at the end of the straights and I passed him back later, so we actually were never able to set a good lap time. The set-up of the bike is good, although we still have to improve it a bit. I’m very happy to be here at my home race with my family and my friends. They have all come out to see me!’
David De Gea,
laps, 177’63 Km.
‘It’s been a new but positive experience for me. The times haven’t been bad considering that it’s been my first contact with the 250cc bike after having been racing with a 1000cc machine. It’s difficult to adapt to this bike, due to the power and the weight. It is completely different from what I’m used to. But I think that I have been improving step by step every time I went onto the track and that I’ll be able to improve a lot more tomorrow. My aim for Sunday is to make a good race. Tomorrow I have to try to improve my times to have a good starting position that will help me make a good start and a good race on Sunday, to be in the front group. I don’t know in which position but I’ll give my best to be as much in the front as possible. Considering that I don’t know the bike much, I think a wet race wouldn’t be bad because I wouldn’t have so many disadvantages. The rider is the most important when it’s raining. I’m good at wet races and although I don’t know this bike in wet conditions, I think that there would be more chances. But well, if it’s dry we’ll have to do all we can.’
Bradley Smith,
33 laps, 158’43 Km.
I didn’t expect to be where I was but it’s been a difficult day. I didn’t really get along with the track so well. I kind of didn’t caught out how you have to ride&I think it’s a bit like Mugello, not the track but the way I’m riding and the things I need to improve on are the same things I needed to improve on there. At least we know how things are now and maybe we’ll go better tomorrow. We have a positive outlook on it. I don’t know what the weather is going to do but we’ll wait and see with that one. Hopefully it’s dry. I need to improve on my lap times and my position on the grid for the race . We got a few things to test so the morning practice is going to be quite busy and hectic. Hopefully we can improve a lot so we’ll wait and see.’
Standings
MotoGP
- V.Rossi (Yamaha) 1’46.981
- S.Nakano (Kawasaki) 1’47.315
- M.Melandri (Honda) 1’47.449
- C.Edwards (Yamaha) 1’47.581
- N.Hayden (Honda) 1’47.610
15. D.Pedrosa (Honda) 1’48.389
250
- J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 1’52.132
- H.Aoyama (KTM) 1’52.250
- S.Aoyama (Honda) 1’52.425
- Y.Takahashi (Honda) 1’52.737
- A.de Angelis (Aprilia) 1’52.846
20. D.de Gea (Honda) 1’55.294
125
- A.Bautista (Aprilia) 1’57.627
- S.Gadea (Aprilia) 1’58.320
- M.Kallio (KTM) 1’58.336
- M.Pasini (Aprilia) 1’58.598
- H.Faubel (Aprilia) 1’58.7652
- B.Smith (Honda) 2’00.790
