Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden were back to work at Jerez today following yesterday’s Spanish GP which Pedrosa won in brilliant style, Hayden building momentum with a fine ride to fourth.
Pedrosa, whose first win of the year moved him into the World Championship lead, used the day to improve his knowledge of his RC212V with which he had limited preseason testing time due to a broken hand sustained in January. Hayden evaluated new parts and new settings, working hard to continue the impressive progress he made over the Spanish GP weekend, during which he raced a new chassis for the first time. Both riders used only race tyres today, while the fastest seven riders used qualifying tyres for their best laps.
Dani Pedrosa, 8th , 1m 40.166s, 69 laps“Today we worked on basic setup to help us get more familiar with the bike, to know our package better and to find the best direction so we can continue improving. It’s the kind of work we usually do at preseason tests but we weren’t able to do this year because of my injury. It was a necessary job with a lot of stops in the pits but I think it was very useful. We also started working on tyres with M ichelin and we will focus on tyre testing all day tomorrow. It will be a very important day, crucial for our development programme.”
Nicky Hayden, 9th, 1m 40. 389s, 80 laps“We learned some stuff today, we were able to run pretty decent and consistent laps using reference tyres and we got some good data, so quite a positive day all in all. We had nothing major to test, just some different clutch options to get into the corners a little bit better and some general setup options, looking for a bit of edge traction to help save the tyre over race distance. W e’ll come back again tomorrow, get another full day and just work our way through some more options.”
Lap times:
1. Jorge LORENZO - Fiat Yamaha Team YAMAHA 1.38.679
2. Valentino ROSSI - Fiat Yamaha Team YAMAHA 1.39.117
3. Casey STONER - Ducati Marlboro Team DUCATI 1.39.218
4. Randy DE PUNIET - LCR Honda MotoGP HONDA 1.39.484
5. John HOPKINS - Kawasaki Racing Team KAWASAKI 1.39.569
6. Loris CAPIROSSI - Rizla Suzuki MotoGP SUZUKI 1.39.747
7. Shinya NAKANO - JPN San Carlo Honda Gresini HONDA 1.40.034
8. Dani PEDROSA - SPA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1.40.166
9. Nicky HAYDEN - USA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1.40.389
10. Andrea DOVIZIOSO - ITA JiR Team Scot MotoGP HONDA 1.40.394
11. Chris VERM EULEN - AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP SUZUKI 1.40.534
12. Alex DE ANGELIS - RSM San Carlo Honda Gresini HONDA 1.41.308
13. Marco MELANDRI - ITA Ducati Marlboro Team DUCATI 1.41.396
14. Anthony WEST - AUS Kawasaki Racing Team KAWASAKI 1.42.132
15. Toni ELIAS - SPA Alice Team DUCATI 1.42.240
16. Sylvain GUINTOLI - FRA Alice Team DUCATI 1.42.624
