Dani Pedrosa sets the second best time in spite of the changeable conditions, and Andrea Dovizioso is ninth on the first day at the Sachsenring
The Repsol Honda Team got off to a good start in the first free practice before the German GP with a competitive Dani Pedrosa setting the 2nd fastest time. His teammate Andrea Dovizioso, was a little further back in 9th place.
The two Repsol Honda Team riders used a new bike in preparation for this GP, one that gives a gentler power delivery, something which had to be improved because both Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso had been complaining about this aspect throughout the season.
Today`s session at the twisty track of the Sachsenring started with the appearance of rain during the 125cc session and this meant that the MotoGP riders had to go out with wet tyres. Fortunately the track dried out halfway through the session and that allowed the riders to use dry tyres for the last 25 minutes.
When the track was wet the Repsol Honda Team riders were in intermediate positions but as the conditions improved they both climbed in the classification. The two riders had a bike with completely new engine available to them in the pits as well as the others that they had used at Laguna Seca. During their time in the wet they both rode the ones ridden at Laguna Seca, but later they used their new ones and they had 25 minutes of practice on them. With so little time neither Pedrosa nor Dovizioso could draw any specific conclusions.
At the end of the first free practice session Dani Pedrosa was 2nd just 2 tenths behind the Australian Casey Stoner, and Dovizioso was 9th. The Italian has work to do on the front end of his Honda RC212V bike as he has to improve the handling when entering corners.
Dani Pedrosa,1’23.034 secs, 28 laps, 103 km >> Audio
“As a first practice session here, this has been pretty good for us. The track was wet at the beginning and then began to dry out, which made things a little complicated, but it was the same for everyone and we made some progress. I have to say that at the beginning in the wet I did take it easy after what happened last year, but actually, when I saw the rain before the session I thought, OK, we can pick up from where we left off and change the outcome. We rode with the new engine today although, because of these mixed conditions, it wasn’t really possible to draw definite conclusions but the feeling was positive. We need more laps to fully evaluate the engine, so we’ll continue with that tomorrow. The main goal is to set the bike up as best as possible for any conditions – rain or dry – ready for the race.”
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’23.370 secs, 30 laps, 110 km >> Audio
“Even though the track conditions were not ideal we already felt some improvements from the new engine that Honda has brought for us this weekend. The situation wasn’t perfect for a comparison test because we started with wet track and then it started to dry so we started with the current version of the engine and then we did the last run with the new one. The feeling was good both in wet and dry conditions and we did a lot of testing without focussing too hard on setting ultimate lap times, so I’m confident for tomorrow. We’ll continue with the set-up and tyre testing work tomorrow, and continue to evaluate the new engine. Today we couldn’t use the hard Bridgestone, but it will be important to test it in preparation for the race. The weather forecast looks really mixed. Of course we would prefer dry, but we we’ll see.”
