Bridgestone-shod Ducati rider Casey Stoner was in impressive form during today’s opening two free practice sessions for Sunday’s British Grand Prix. Stoner was the fastest man around Donington Park throughout both sessions leading his nearest rivals by over half-a-second. Stoner won last year’s wet-drying British Grand Prix using Bridgestone wet weather tyres. It was an encouraging day’s work for Bridgestone-shod teams with Fiat Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi in third place, San Carlo Honda Gresini duo Alex de Angelis and Shina Nakano in fifth and seventh places respectively, and Rizla Suzuki’s Chris Vermeulen in ninth.
A range of tyre specifications was evaluated today with different soft and medium front and rear compounds, including a new compound introduced for this weekend’s race, while some teams also tried a new construction rear tyre.
Tyre Talk with Tohru Ubukata - Bridgestone Motorsport – Manager, Motorcycle Race Tyre Development What has Bridgestone learned after today’s two practice sessions? “It has been a good day of work for us at Donington today and we have been able to utilise both sessions effectively to develop a good direction in dry conditions. Casey has been particularly impressive during the day with some very fast and consistent lap times. The weather forecast for this weekend looks quite unsettled, so our priority today was to get a solid understanding of our compound range for this track. We have brought a new compound to Donington, which is the result of development work started in the post Le Mans test last month, and the initial results have been quite pleasing. Some riders also used a new construction rear tyre, designed to enhance edge grip, which also gave reasonable performance.”
Is durability a concern for this track?“Donington has not been a particularly easy track for us in the past, but we made some important improvements for last year’s race weekend. We only had two dry sessions last year before the rain came but the signs were already encouraging. I think we have taken another step forward for this year’s event based on today’s results, but tyre durability remains an unknown factor, even if some riders put quite a few laps on the same spec rear tyre in this afternoon’s session. The weather will inevitably play its part over the next two days, but we draw real optimism from today, and will be prepared whatever weather greets us tomorrow.”
Bridgestone-shod Riders’ Combined Practice Session Results Pos. - Rider - Team - Session 1 (pos) Session 2 (pos) Gap P1. Casey Stoner - Ducati Corse 1m28.979s (P1) 1m28.253s (P1) Fastest
P3. Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha Team 1m29.917s (P8) 1m28.909s (P3) +0.656s
P5. Alex de Angelis - San Carlo Honda Gresini 1m29.527s (P2) 1m28.992s (P5) +0.739s
P7. Shinya Nakano - San Carlo Honda Gresini 1m30.144s (P9) 1m29.207s (P7) +0.954s
P9. Chris Vermeulen - Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m29.787s (P6) 1m29.410s (P9) +1.157s
P11. John Hopkins - Kawasaki Racing Team 1m30.282s (P11) 1m29.441s (P11) +1.188s
P12. Anthony West - Kawasaki Racing Team 1m30.452s (P13) 1m29.666s (P12) +1.413s
P14. Marco Melandri - Ducati Corse 1m30.906s (P15) 1m29.856s (P14) +1.603s
P15. Toni Elias Alice - Team 1m31.103s (P16) 1m30.268s (P15) +2.015s
P17. Ben Spies - Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m31.807s (P18) 1m30.766s (P17) +2.513s
P18. Sylvain Guintoli - Alice Team 1m31.578s (P17) 1m30.931s (P18) +2.678s
Weather: Session 1: Dry – Air 19°C, Track 25°C (Bridgestone measurement)
Session 2: Dry – Air 22°C, Track 33°C (Bridgestone measurement)
