Repsol Honda’s Pedrosa, Stoner, Dovizioso amongst top five in Motorland Aragon GP FP1 – MotoGP news
Repsol Honda riders’ trio Dani Pedrosa, Casey Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso has started the Motorland Aragon weekend with a strong pace.
All the Repsol riders were ranked in top five slots for the final time sheet of Free Practice 1.
Pedrosa said, “In the morning session we were basically trying to get the feeling from the race track and we started well. We saw that the softer compound is maybe too soft, so not really the one for the race if the high temperatures remain, so we also tried
the medium compound and I felt comfortable.”
The Spanish rider was unhappy with the cancellation of the second free practice session. The weather was favourable for the practice runs, but the power failure prevented the FP2 from being held.
However, the FP3 will be held as an extended session. On this, Pedrosa explained that the gap between normal two sessions gives a break to analyse the data and make changes accordingly. He said although the session will be longer than usual but it might
not be as helpful.
As a matter of fact, everyone is in the same situation so it will be hard for everyone. For Dani, the priority is to get the best race setup with a good qualifying round.
The 2011 MotoGP championship leader Casey Stoner was about a second behind his teammate Pedrosa at third position in the FP1. The Aussie rider faced an extreme tyre wear out due an abrasive tarmac.
Stoner said, “We didn't get that much time on the track this morning, we managed to get some data from the session but nothing that great. The track was a little abrasive and destroying tyres very quickly, we went out on the soft tyre and destroyed it in
three to four laps.”
Stoner waited for the session to close to its end to inspect the track surface whether it had changed its effect or not. As he returned to the track later in the session, the tarmac was still biting out the tyres vigorously.
Their third teammate Andrea Dovizioso was fifth behind the fellow factory Honda rider and compatriot, Marco Simoncelli from the San Carlo Honda Gresini team.
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