Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso struggles through first practice day for Valencia GP – MotoGP news
Repsol Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso had a hard first practice day at Ricardo Tormo circuit, Valencia.
The MotoGP season finale at Valencia will take place this weekend.
The Italian Honda rider was struggling to sort a race setup while the short and interrupted showers hampered his effort.
Dovizioso said, “Today the conditions of the track were really demanding as there was no grip. We did good work with the team and we were careful not to make mistakes as we didn't want to take additional risks with these difficult conditions.”
During the first practice session, the Italian rider lapped 1 minute and 46.402 seconds and took ninth position in the session. Dovizioso was 0.889 seconds off from Stoner in the morning session.
While in the second free practice session he further struggled to improve his lap times but all went ineffective.
Though he was sixth in the FP2 but he his best effort was about three seconds slower than his FP1 best lap time.
The track lacked grip due to some unwanted rubber left from previous racing events. The tarmac got slippery and greasy when the rain fell on the track.
It left the riders with no direction to sort their bike settings. Though Dovizioso’s teammates Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa topped the combined time chart but it was hard for every rider.
The temperature was 16 degree Celsius the highest at afternoon. The low, unfavourable temperature kept the riders on edge to sort out settings.
The Italian HRC rider added, “All in all, I'm quite satisfied as I was able to ride quiet fast without pushing too much but of course we need to keep on working. I hope that tomorrow the weather and the track situation will improve.”
The Italian factory Honda rider hopes to see a dry practice session. With a rain-affected first practice day, the riders did not have any directions to sort proper race setup.
The teams are short of time and wait for the FP3 to be in a dry condition that will help them to direct the struggle in a progressive way.
The qualifying practice session is crucial and will demand a strong effort to score better positions on the grid.
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