Dani Pedrosa sets the fifth fastest time of the day. Team mate Nicky Hayden continues immerse in the evolution of the new bike
The Repsol Honda Team riders continued today with the scheduled tests on the Jerez circuit, venue of the Spanish Grand Prix, first scoring round of the 2006 Motorcycling Grand Prix, to be staged in two weeks. In exactly two weeks, at this time, the first starting grids of the 2006 season will have been defined.Premier class rookie Dani Pedrosa, continues firmly preparing himself for the first race in Jerez and for this 2006 season that is just about to start. Shortly after 02.30 p.m. Dani made a semi race simulation covering 22 laps out of the 27 laps that are usually covered in Jerez during a MotoGP race. In total, Pedrosa rode 88 laps on the Andalusian track, setting his fastest lap time on lap number 82.
The Repsol rider covered a total of 390 Km today.His team mate, North American rider Nicky Hayden, is still working with his team of mechanics and engineers testing tyres, suspension settings, different set-ups and all kinds of solutions to get the best performance out of his new Honda RC211V 2006. The times set today were no reference in the garage of the North American. Given the large amount of tests made, he did not attach much importance to his thirteenth fastest time. Hayden made a total of 97 laps – he was the rider who covered more laps than any other – and a total of 429 Km.
Dani Pedrosa:
‘Now I feel more comfortable on the bike. You never know if it’s the definitive position, because we’re still testing things, but we’re very close. I like it for the moment. I’m tired, much more than yesterday. We have covered many laps and above all, the tests in the afternoon were very intense. But we’re happy, we have been improving and the half-race simulation went quite well. I haven’t been as fast as the other riders during the simulation, but I’m happy to have had this first experience. I was able to feel how the bike changes its behaviour and I’ve seen that you have to try to adapt as the laps go by. That’s the most important aspect in MotoGP right now, the ability to change your riding style during the race. I think that I have made quite correct times, even though this wasn’t our main aim. The most important was doing the race simulation, because we had been trying to do it for quite a long time and hadn’t managed so far.’
Nicky Hayden:
‘No, with no doubt we haven’t made the progress expected today. We haven’t been able to improve the rear end of the bike and that’s what we’ve been working on, so there’s not much to say. We tested some tyres and it went a bit better, but the overall performance hasn’t been much better than yesterday, so we’re not really happy. We have a lot of work to do and we have to find solutions. Just as yesterday, we’ll try to do some changes tomorrow and progress.’
Official times
- Shinya Nakano 1.40.047 seg.
- Loris Capirossi 1.40.544 seg.
- John Hopkins 1.40.791 seg.
- Randy De Puniet 1.40.839 seg.
- Dani Pedrosa 1.40.859 seg.
- Valentino Rossi 1.40.915 seg.
- Carlos Checa 1.40.943 seg.
- Sete Gibernau 1.40.954 seg.
- Colin Edwards 1.41.105 seg.
- Chris Vermeullen 1.41.110 seg.
- Toni Elias 1.41.254 seg.
- Makoto Tamada 1.41.561 seg.
- Nicky Hayden 1.41.745 seg.
- Kenny Roberts 1.42.127 seg.
- José Luis Cardoso 1.42.593 seg.
- Marco Melandri 1.42.636 seg.
