The Repsol Honda Team riders got off to a good start in their first free session before the Czech Republic GP held today ,Friday, at the circuit of Brno. The winner of the British GP at Donington Park a fortnight ago, the Italian Andrea Dovizioso, got back to work after a two week break having had time to enjoy his first ever victory in MotoGP. He was the 5th fastest rider today and his teammate Dani Pedrosa was 3rd, where he was practically the whole session, behind the two official Yamaha riders, Valentino Rossi & Jorge Lorenzo.
The first free session saw Dani Pedrosa climb the classification as the session went by, getting the feel of the track and bike during the first half hour; first with softer compound tyres – to get back into the swing after a couple of weeks without riding – and later with race tyres and faster times in consequence. The tests this afternoon concentrated on the tyre selection, and at the same time adjustments were made to the suspension and the engine on his Honda RC212V. Dani did 24 laps, setting his fastest lap on the penultimate one.
The same work was done by his Repsol Honda teammate, the Italian Andrea Dovizioso, but above all he has to improve his bike for when it takes corners so that it can turn faster on the Czech track. Andrea Dovizioso did a total of 25 laps, setting his best time on the final one.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’57.584 secs, 24 laps, 130 km. >> Audio
“It was good to get back on track after the summer break and I’m feeling very good on the bike now. I’m happy we’ve made a positive start to the weekend because sometimes we’ve struggled a little for direction on Fridays, but today was better in that respect. We still need to close the gap to the front riders and this is what we’ll be working on tomorrow. We tried a new swing-arm from HRC here and we’ll continue to test it tomorrow because today we were still working on the general machine settings for this track. Overall, I’m pleased with how today went”.
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’58.172 secs, 25 laps, 135 km. >> Audio
“It felt great to ride out of the pit-lane today and onto the track as a MotoGP winner, and I enjoyed the summer break all the more after the victory at Donington. I’m under no illusions though – we have to work hard so that I can repeat the performance in dry conditions and today we were not as close to the front riders as we would have liked. We need to make some adjustments to the handling under braking because this is an area we can clearly improve on. Tomorrow morning we will try the new swing-arm provided the conditions are suitable. I’m sure we can move forward from here”.
