Nicky Hayden and Dani Pedrosa aiming again at the podium in Istanbul.
Fastest time for Nicky Hayden in MotoGP; Pedrosa fourth in his first contact on his Repsol Honda RC211V in Turkey.
The practice sessions couldn’t have a better start for the Repsol Honda Team riders at the Turkish Grand Prix, showing themselves highly competitive in the first practice day at the Istanbul circuit. Hayden set the fourth fastest time in the morning, covering 23 laps. Team mate Dani Pedrosa, on his first contact with this circuit in the new class, covered a total of 21 laps, setting his best time – eighth – on the twentieth lap. In the afternoon’s second free practice, Nicky Hayden was fastest and Pedrosa, who managed to top the sheets 20 minutes before the end of the session, finally was fourth fastest, a bit more than three tenths behind his team mate.
In the 250cc, average performance of the Repsol riders on the first day at the Turkish track, with Shuhei Aoyama focussed on learning the Istanbul track – 11th in the morning and 14th in the afternoon during the first qualifying practices-, and team mate Sebastián Porto, still trying to feel comfortable on his Honda RS250RW, far behind the leading positions. The Argentinean rider set the eighth fastest time in the morning and was ninth in the first qualifying session, 2 seconds behind the fastest time clocked by Jorge Lorenzo.
In the minor class, Bradley Smith finished his first contact with the Turkish track on twenty-sixth position, a bit more than 3 seconds behind the fastest time clocked by Spanish rider Bautista. In the morning, the young Repsol rider finished twenty-first.
Rider´s comments
Nicky Hayden,
49 laps, 261’66 Km:
‘The feeling on the first day is pretty positive. Overall we made some nice progress from the morning to the afternoon which I’m happy about because that’s something we didn’t do at Qatar – improve as we went on. It’s still early and we had a few little problems through the session with my number one bike and I had to kinda jump from one to the other at the end. We still need to find some improvements because we’re still hurting a little bit on edge grip and the track seems pretty slippery to me. We’re trying to find some traction and to get a little bit more stability on the brakes. It’s a tough track with a lot of elevation changes and some of the paint’s slippery in places so you’ve got to be on your toes around here. And we’ll have to see what the weather’s going to do – it doesn’t look real pretty tomorrow. It’s nice to be at the top of the timesheets, but it’s still early – we’ll see what happens tomorrow.’
Dani Pedrosa,
46 laps, 245’64 Km:
‘Well at the beginning of the day we had a problem with the electronics and we lost some time, but really this was a normal first day, trying to get used to the track on a new bike for me, getting the right gearing, learning the braking points. I made many mistakes while I was doing this today! In the afternoon we started to test some tyres and get some information for qualifying and the race. When I was pushing hard towards the end of the session I had oil flags in the last two minutes and I had to slow down, so I couldn’t improve my lap times right at the end. The best thing though is that we are getting closer to the front from the beginning of the weekend, so I’m happy with how today went.’
Sebastián Porto,
37 laps, 197’58 Km:
‘It’s being a bit complicated; we still have to improve a lot. We’ve made a lot of changes from the morning to the afternoon; we changed parts of the engine and some things of the chassis and there are some things that improved, but others didn’t. The chassis isn’t working well yet, but we still have tomorrow to improve, so I’m not worried. We hope to find the right way, and if we do, I’m sure that we’re going to make a major step forward. We have problems with the chassis and the set-up, so we’ll have to change a lot because it’s nothing simple. We’re going to do those changes for tomorrow, trying to improve the bike, because the bike hasn’t been working the way I want it, despite the improvement in the afternoon. We put our hopes in the changes we’re going to make for tomorrow and let’s see if we’re able to make this major step we need so much.’
Shuhei Aoyama,
41 laps, 218’94 Km:
‘There’s not much I can say right now. This circuit is also complicated, less than the one in Qatar, but complicated& We’re trying to find a set-up for the suspensions and chassis to make me feel comfortable on the bike, but there’s still a lot of work to do. It’s a fast circuit with a lot of hills; it’s difficult to learn, but I feel much more comfortable than in Qatar. Tomorrow we’ll have to improve both the bike and the rider to move up some places and get a good place on the starting grid.’
Bradley Smith,
30 laps, 160’20 Km:
‘It’s really good. I like the track very much. With the hills and everything it feels more like a motocross track; it just feels really good, though I’m struggling a little bit. I did my fastest lap on my own but I think that tomorrow hopefully, if it doesn’t rain, I’ll be able to go out behind someone. This track is so fast, that I think if you just follow someone and you don’t really think, just follow their line, you may improve maybe one second or one second and a half. This is my plan for tomorrow. I’m not really happy with the time but this is what happens and there’s always tomorrow so. The bike was struggling in the up-hills, and it wasn’t really pulling either; the rear suspension is too soft so in the fast left-handers I have a lot of chatter when the front isn’t gripping right. But apart from that everything works well; we improved from Qatar with the front end problem and the rear en problem. But as I said if it rains, all plans will go back to step one; but I’m looking forward to it, as I said, get behind someone and push
