MotoGP – Free Practice 1 Report – Catalunya Grand Prix 2010
The riders took to the track for the first time at Catalunya this Friday with air temperatures reaching as much as 37°C and track temperatures of 52°C. Despite difficult grip conditions, Jorge Lorenzo was eager to impress his home crowd and showed exactly why he is in the lead of the Championship as he took top honours in the first practice session with a time of 1’43.259.
Lorenzo has thus far been downplaying the results of the Catalunya Grand Prix by focusing more on his championship lead as he believes that his rivals are feeling the pressure to win more than him as he now enjoys a 47 point lead over his nearest rival and countryman Dani Pedrosa. Lorenzo set his fastest lap time in lap 17 but seemed to be at ease throughout the session. As is customary with such soaring temperatures, conditions tend to be very slippery and riders were focusing on optimizing their rear grip levels. “The only problem was that the track was so slippery and I couldn’t improve so much on the lap time I set in the middle of the session. The rear was sliding a lot which was partly to do with the heat, but we will try to improve this tomorrow”, said the Spaniard after the session.
Despite having a very dismal season, Ducati will be pleased with the results of the session as Casey Stoner finished second. The Aussie was 0.153 seconds behind Lorenzo and very confident with the performance of his machine. “So far everything feels quite good on the track. The grip is good and there are not too many bumps so I’m quite impressed with that,” said Stoner after the session. “The bike was slowly starting to feel better the more laps we did and each step we made seemed to make a small improvement”.
Dani Pedrosa and teammate Andrea Dovizioso claimed the third and fourth fastest times respectively for the Repsol Honda Team. Although almost four tenths of a second behind session leader Lorenzo, Pedrosa will be keen to repeat his race winning performance of 2008 where he beat Valentino Rossi by less than two tenths of a second. After his second place finish in Assen, Pedrosa commented on how things were moving in the right direction in the team. “The temperature was very high today, and the track surface temperature especially, and this affects the levels of grip. We started at the point where we finished in Assen and the bike feels ok. We have to discuss all the details from today in our team meeting tonight but I think we have found a decent direction. In general I’m quite happy so far. Already I can feel the anticipation building for this race and the support from my home fans so I’m excited about the rest of the weekend,” he said to sum up the events of the session.
Ben Spies continued his impressive mastery of the MotoGP machines as he finished in the fifth position behind the Hondas. Riding for Monster Yamaha Tech 3 team, Spies spent most of the session learning the track as he was racing at Catalunya for the first time. He set a hot lap in the closing stages of the session, jumping from the 15th in the timing sheets to 5th position. The 25-year-old American now looks to build on his impressive string of performances from Silverstone and Assen where he finished 3rd and 4th in the races respectively. “The track is fun but the longer turns are pretty hard to learn. The last three turns are definitely a little bit different but I felt I was slowly getting to grips with it and I'm really surprised I ended so high up in fifth,” said the rookie who seems to take on the challenge of learning these new tracks with a very positive outlook. “I learnt it pretty well in the middle and then in the end it was a lot better. I still struggled in a couple of areas but I know what to do, I just didn’t really put it all together. So I’ll have a good think about it overnight and see what we can do tomorrow”.
It was another disappointing session for the Suzuki’s as they finished 11th and 12th - almost a second and a half off the session leader’s time. Marco Melandri finished in 14th place after his return to action after recovering from a dislocated shoulder in Assen. Japan’s Wataru Yoshikawa brought up the rear finishing in 17th and last as the 41-year-old competes in his first premier class race since 2002. Riding as replacement for Valentino Rossi, the Fiat Yamaha team will look to get as much data as they can from the experience till the 7 time World Champion recovers from a broken ankle.
The drivers will look to improve their times as they will have another session tomorrow before they set out for the qualifying session later in the afternoon. Nursing the tires and getting the right balance on this delicate track will be the key things for things to improve in tomorrow’s session. But it seems thus far that the Spanish fans will be treated to an amazing racing weekend as their home hero looks to make it a hat-trick of wins.
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