Casey Stoner, Andrea Dovizioso and Hiroshi Aoyama, replacement for the injured Dani Pedrosa, were greeted with very wet conditions in the first session today in Assen.
Stoner and Dovizioso, third and fourth respectively after the end of the first forty-five minute practice session, spent their time working on general set up and grip issues. Aoyama, the first man out on track, was eager to make the most of his first session the RC212V, and also attack the Assen circuit for the first time on a MotoGP machine.
In the afternoon, all three Repsol Honda Riders were looking to continue set up work on their bikes, however, after an oil spill on track from the Moto2 class, Free Practice 2 was cancelled until tomorrow morning, when the riders will be able to make use of a longer 90 minute session to finalise set up for Qualifying in the afternoon.
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CASEY STONER – 3rd 1’49.527
“This morning’s session was good to get some more data on the wet set up as we still don’t have that much experience in these conditions on the RC212V. We worked on getting the general set up of the bike a little better and also with the edge of the tyre where we wanted to try and create more heat. We concentrated on this in the morning session and the last exit was a little better but unfortunately we didn’t have enough laps to warm the tyre up and find any real advantage. This afternoon we wanted to continue with this but unfortunately due to an oil spill on track from the Moto2 class we had to forefit the session and we’ll come back tomorrow and see what we can do”.
ANDREA DOVIZIOSO – 4th 1’49.640
“This morning I found a good feeling with the bike and we were able to be fast from the beginning. There was not so much grip so between the first and the second exits we made a change to improve this and in the second outing the bike worked better. We had planned another change in the afternoon session as we have margin to improve but today we rode well without taking too many risks. It’s a shame we couldn’t test this afternoon after the oil spill on track but FP3 will be longer tomorrow to recover this time. Depending on the weather, we will continue where we left off today”.
HIROSHI AOYAMA – 12th 1’53.132
“This morning I was a little nervous because it was my first time on the Honda factory bike and also in Assen on a MotoGP bike as I missed the race last year due to injury. It was a pity because in wet conditions I couldn’t compare my bike with this one, but from the beginning the feeling was not so bad, the bike seems a little bit smoother than my one, but I cannot say much at the moment, I simply need more laps on the bike. Unfortunately, this afternoon the practice was cancelled due to track conditions but tomorrow we will a have longer session which is good. The plan was for me to adapt to the bike more than actually making any changes on the bike to suit me, so we will stick to this plan also for tomorrow and I hope to improve the feeling and go faster”.
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