Once again rain had a leading role on the first day of practice before a Grand Prix in 2009. This time it fell at Le Mans – French GP – a classic in the World Championship calendar but even so a venue associated with rain. The low temperatures – 12ºC – and the wind did not make things easy for the riders, so even the extra time allowed in the sessions (available for the first time today, until Jerez they were of only 45 minutes duration) did not help much either today.
With the track cold and dirty, and a strong wind blowing the MotoGP riders started the first free practice session taking certain precautions. The times, (a 1.36’136 secs. for Dovizioso was the fastest time today) prove this, as this is almost two seconds slower than the lap record – 1.34’2 secs. held by the Italian Valentino Rossi.
The Repsol Honda Team rider Dani Pedrosa, returning to work at the French track after the recent Spanish GP where he was second, put in a very positive first free session, although as he himself said, there is still a lot of work to be done for the race on Sunday. He kept himself among the five fastest the whole session, until with 26 minutes left, rain began to fall, which even though it was very light, forced all the riders to go to the pits.
Fifteen minutes later it had stopped and Pedrosa was the first to get out on the track again, but at the end of this lap he went back to the pits: heavy rain had started to fall and the session was ended before schedule. So the first session ended with the track neither wet nor dry and with Pedrosa 5th, a little over three tenths off the best time set by Dovizioso.
The Italian Repsol Honda Team rider, sixth when the rain began to fall on the French track, set the fastest lap at just the right moment, moving to the top of the leaderboard seconds before the rain began. And so Andrea, who just like his teammate was always among the leaders in the free session, was the fastest after his first contact with the French asphalt.
Similar weather is expected tomorrow at the French circuit of Le Mans.
Dani Pedrosa – 5th 1m 36.476s >> Audio >> Audio (cat)
“We were lucky to get some dry track time today, even though there was rain towards the close of the session. It’s a very different kind of circuit to the last race at Jerez – where I’ve testing a lot – and so really today was about getting dialed in to this track and beginning the set-up process. My physical condition is getting better all the time and I can bend my knee a lot more now – I’ve almost got full movement. Still, I haven’t been able to train physically at 100 per cent though, so my condition isn’t perfect yet, but it’s getting better all the time. I didn’t ride much in the second half of the session today because it wasn’t fully wet and we have a limit on wet tyres, so I didn’t want to waste any. Let’s see what the weather brings tomorrow.”
Andrea Dovizioso – 1st 1m 36.136s >> Audio
“I’m happy today because we have started in the right way here at Le Mans. I like this track and I was able to be fast right from the beginning of the session. Unfortunately it started raining in the middle of the practice and so we didn’t do many laps – only 16 in total. This meant we couldn’t test so many options on the machine but anyway, we were able to get some useful information and learn that we need to improve the set-up for corner entry. The lap times overall were not very fast today and I think they will come down by around two seconds – so today’s lap time is not indicative for the weekend. Regarding the race, I’ve had many podium finishes here so my expectations are high, but it’s too early to speculate about results. We just need to keep on working hard – and keep an eye on the weather.”
