Repsol Honda Team riders Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso were quickly up to speed at the Brno circuit today as the first practice session took place in preparation for Sunday’s Grand Prix of the Czech Republic. Pedrosa spent significant chunks of the hour-long session in top spot and eventually finished in a competitive second place behind championship leader Jorge Lorenzo. Dovizioso was just 0.1s behind his team-mate in fourth place, and both the factory Honda riders were satisfied with the work they put in today at the 5.403km (3.357-mile) circuit.
With rain forecast to arrive at Brno - the Czech Republic’s second largest city - at some stage over the weekend, it was important for the MotoGP riders to make good use of today’s largely dry practice session. Indeed with ten minutes to go in the hour-long session a few spots began to fall, effectively ending the practice as the riders ducked into the pits. But before the rain came, Pedrosa and Dovizioso had looked in confident form as they began to fine-tune their Honda RC212Vs to match the fast and undulating curves of the Brno circuit.
Pedrosa’s RC212V recorded the fastest speed through the speed trap today (300.2 km/h), with Dovizioso second (297.0 km/h) and fellow Honda rider Marco Melandri third (296.1 km/h). A further practice and qualifying session will take place tomorrow, with Sunday’s 22-lap Grand Prix of the Czech Republic scheduled to begin at 14.00.
DANI PEDROSA – 2nd – 1m 57.756s +0.541s
“This was the first session after the summer break and I took it quite easy just to get into the rhythm and to get used to the bike again. Things went smoothly this afternoon and this was a pretty good start to our weekend. It was a pity that the session was interrupted at the end by the spitting rain, which was affecting the back side of the circuit the most, but before that came the feeling with the machine was quite good. Also because of the rain we couldn’t get through all the Bridgestone tyre testing we had planned, but it’s not a big deal. Tomorrow we will keep working on all areas of set-up and so far our direction seems on the right track.”
ANDREA DOVIZIOSO – 4th – 1m 57.873s +0.658s
“It was a good start for us and I’m reasonably happy with the job we did today - even though the lap times are not so indicative at this stage because they will come down quite a lot tomorrow if it stays dry. We didn’t have time to finish the full programme of work we had scheduled today because of the rain in the last ten minutes of the session. So we still need to do some more testing on the Bridgestone tyre options, and we’ll also make some set-up changes to get a bit more stability on the brakes. I hope that tomorrow we can have two try sessions because the forecast is uncertain, but anyway I’m confident for this race weekend.”
TOSHIYUKI YAMAJI - REPSOL HONDA TEAM MANAGER
“Both Dani and Andrea had a good session and we can certainly use this practice as a solid base for the rest of the weekend. In fact we lost a few minutes at the end of the hour, but this was the same for all teams and we’re confident that both Dani and Andrea can be competitive in qualifying tomorrow. We’re starting the second half the 2010 MotoGP season this weekend and the motivation in the Repsol Honda Team is very high to get the best possible results on Sunday and for the rest of the year.”
Click Here to Read More
MotoGP: Jorge Lorenzo Fastest in First Practice at Brno
MotoGP: Grand Prix of the Czech Republic - First Practice Results
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