Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa set an impressive pace on the opening day of Catalan Grand Prix practice today, topping the first two sessions, just six thousandths ahead of his closest rival Loris Capirossi. Team-mate Nicky Hayden made solid progress, ending the day ninth, less than six tenths off the fastest lap of the day.
Track conditions were more slippery than usual today following heavy rain throughout much of yesterday. Seven riders crashed during the morning and afternoon sessions, Pedrosa sliding off in the final minutes of the second outing, after he already had ridden his best lap.
Dani Pedrosa, fastest, 1m 43.017s
“We started practice this morning using the set-up from Mugello. We tried various different chassis settings and we also tried a few different tyres for the race. This morning the asphalt was quite dirty, and although the track conditions improved a bit this afternoon the surface was still dirty off-line. Also, this track is quite bumpy, from the F1 cars. Late this afternoon I crashed at turn five. There’s a joint in the asphalt there, I hit the bump and lost the front. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt and I was able to continue riding. We had two dry sessions today which was good. Tomorrow we will continue tuning the set-up and testing tyres for the race.”
Nicky Hayden, 9th fastest, 1m 43.614s
“Today hasn’t been the smoothest. There’s a lot of long corners here, so we’ve been trying to get a bit of rear traction, that’s what we’re working on. We’ve tried a few things and we had something we were going to try on the second bike this afternoon but we lost a bit of time with that bike. There’s been a lot of rain here the last couple of days, this morning the track was a bit damp off line, with a little bit of water sitting in the kerbs, which made them pretty slippery. This afternoon the weather was perfect but the track was still a little slippery off-line.”
Kazuhiko Yamano - Team Manager
“Dani and Nicky are working carefully towards their race settings. The set-up here isn’t so different from Mugello, so they are only making minor adjustments plus doing same race tyre testing, of course. Dani crashed late this afternoon but he is okay, no problem. The weather forecast seems okay, so we hope for another dry day tomorrow.”
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