Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards started their Dutch challenge in unusual style today, both sporting a new 1950's-inspired livery on their leathers and bikes. The colourful pair finished the day fourth and seventh in the combined standings after a thankfully dry first day of practice for the Dutch TT. This morning saw the Yamaha duo second and fourth respectively in the first practice as they tested tyres and worked on bike set-up. They continued with more of the same throughout this afternoon's second practice, dropping slightly down the order but both improving on their times from the morning. Both riders finished the day feeling initially positive about their tyre choices and potential in the dry and, with rain a possibility tomorrow, today's two hours of dry track time could prove crucial. The fastest time of the day was set by Casey Stoner with a lap of 1'37.828, just 0.320 seconds faster than Rossi.
The Fiat Yamaha Team's special Assen livery is inspired by Fiat's famous '500' and celebrates the forthcoming re-launch of the iconic car on 4th July, exactly 50 years after it was first launched in 1957. The design is inspired by the art and discography of the era, including Elvis Presley and Italy's Rita Pavone.
Valentino Rossi - 4th, 1'38.148
"Today was not too bad! This morning was actually better than this afternoon, even though we were faster in the second session. Our initial base set-up this morning felt quite good but this afternoon we tested some different things and honestly I didn't have such a good feel. Our tyre choice seems to be okay and we have some softer tyres here which should work better in lower temperatures, as we should be able to get the heat into them faster. We've started out okay today but we need to improve some things so I really hope it's not going to rain tomorrow. I really like my new livery, it's fun and different and the colours especially are something you don't usually see on the racetrack! The Fiat 500 is a famous Italian icon so it's good to be able to celebrate the new version of the car in this way."
Colin Edwards - 7th, 1'38.341"I'm pretty happy with how we've started out here today. Michelin have brought some good stuff again and we've managed to get through all the things we needed to test for the weekend. At the moment it looks like we could actually race three of our tyre choices so that's a good situation to be in at this stage. Today we had my bikes set-up in two different ways and one was better than the other, so tomorrow we'll go with that for them both. It's actually pretty similar to last year's bike and that obviously worked good then so we'll keep going on like that. It was great to have two sessions uninterrupted by rain for once, fingers crossed we'll have more of the same tomorrow. The livery's pretty cool, it's fun to have something different and I've had some good comments from the rest of the riders. I'm not sure I could handle the pink every week but as a one-off special it's great!"
Davide Brivio - Team Director"It's been good to have an entirely dry day after all the rain we've had recently. We were able to check some good tyres with both our riders and it seems we've got a good base on the bike. Now we need to put everything together and fine-tune the settings and make our final tyre choices. Unfortunately it might rain tomorrow, in which case we'll only have today's data to analyse for a dry race, but we've got some good information so we should be okay. We're very pleased to be able to help Fiat to celebrate such an important event with our special 'Cinquecento' livery. The fact that our team can be used as a tool to help publicise the re-launch of an Italian icon is a great example of the importance and success of Fiat's sponsorship."
Circuit Length: 4555
Free Practice - MotoGP - Assen:1. Casey Stoner - Ducati - AUS 1'37.828
2. Randy De Puniet - Kawasaki - FRA 1'38.040
3. Nicky Hayden - Honda - USA 1'38.114
4. Valentino Rossi - Yamaha - ITA 1'38.148
5. Daniel Pedrosa - Honda - ESP 1'38.221
6. Makoto Tamada - Yamaha - JPN 1'38.256
7. Colin Edwards - Yamaha - USA 1'38.341
8. John Hopkins - Suzuki - USA 1'38.436
9. Shinya Nakano - Honda - JPN 1'38.444
10. Alex Barros - Ducati - BRA 1'38.485
11. Loris Capirossi - Ducati - ITA 1'38.600
12. Sylvain Guintoli - Yamaha - FRA 1'38.650
13. Carlos Checa - Honda - ESP 1'38.733
14. Alex Hofmann - Ducati - GER 1'38.846
15. Chris Vermeulen - Suzuki - AUS 1'39.152
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