With Dani Pedrosa’s Sachsenring victory still fresh in the mind, the first free practice of the ninth Grand Prix in the 2010 MotoGP World Championship got underway today at the legendary US track, Laguna Seca, located a few kilometres outside the Californian city of Monterey. The free practice session was held this afternoon at 1.55 pm – 10.55 pm CET –, with Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa proving to be competitive from the start.
The Italian ended the day in third place, 526 milliseconds off the best time recorded by Casey Stoner, and Dani Pedrosa 860 milliseconds behind the Australian. The two Repsol Honda Team members did not take long to become competitive and almost from the start of the session, Pedrosa took the lead and Dovizioso closed in on the best times of the day. As the laps passed, the Italian kept close to the reference times, whereas Pedrosa, who was consistently among the top five, had more problems shaving off the tenths that separated him from the pace of Stoner and Lorenzo.
Laguna Seca stands out for being one of the shortest and most technical circuits on the calendar, similar to the circuit that hosted the German Grand Prix five days ago and once again, fine tuning the set-up of the Repsol Honda RC212V’s was the main hobbyhorse for Dovizioso and Pedrosa. The Spanish rider again had problems with the set-up, above all, with the suspension set-up, which he gradually resolved with his technical team.
On the other side of the garage, both the technicians and the rider had a look of satisfaction. Dovizioso started the first practice day for the US race very well, with a good initial set-up that allowed him to achieve the third best time. The Italian was very satisfied with the work and practice done today along with his technical team.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’22.559 sec, 30 laps, 108 KM >> Audio
“I know we can improve quite a lot from today so I’m reasonably confident about the rest of the weekend. After the first run this afternoon we made some settings adjustments to the bike which didn’t improve the pace as we’d anticipated and there are a few areas we need to work on in order to move forward. For the first day the lap times at the top are quick already but I’m not worried about the gap because I know we can improve from here. We need to work to increase the grip at the rear and also get some more stability at the front. Last year here we were also not so fast on the first day so we’ll keep working and get ready to take a step forward tomorrow”.
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’22.225 sec, 33 laps, 119 KM >> Audio
“I’m happy with the start we’ve made to the weekend today. We got into a good rhythm quickly and we’re faster than we were last year here. This year’s RC212V is much more controllable and so it’s quite a lot easier to get into a rhythm and set quick and consistent lap times. On our last run out of the pits we tried some new electronics settings for traction control and the feeling was generally good. Of course we need to continue working on this and testing them tomorrow to understand the changes better, but it’s a positive step. The asymmetric tyre Bridgestone has brought here is working well. I used the harder Bridgestones for my fastest laps so I’m confident we can find a good race setting and also qualify well tomorrow”.
