San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Marco Simoncelli crashed near the halfway point in Friday afternoon’s second free practice session at the Estoril Circuit. At the time he had a gap of just .061 of a secoind on World Champion Jorge Lorenzo, giving the Yamaha man more than 20 minutes to demote the second-year MotoGP rider. But for the final 22 minutes, only one rider made a serious attack and he, too, came up short. So Simoncelli emerged as the fastest rider on the first day of the Portuguese Grand Prix - fast in the morning, fast and flawed in the afternoon.
It was the first time that Simoncelli had led either session in his MotoGP career and certainly the first time he’d led both. Since joining the premier class last year, the tall, lanky Italian has made steady progress on the Honda RC212V, which he proved by leading the rain-hit Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez four weeks ago. Simoncelli would crash out of the lead on the wet track in Spain, ruining a possible first MotoGP win, but today’s performance confirmed that he continues on the march.
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MotoGP: Marco Simoncelli Fastest in First Practice at Estoril
MotoGP: Portuguese Grand Prix - First Practice Results
Yamaha’s Lorenzo never closed the .061 of a second gap on Simoncelli. The World Champion didn’t increase his speed in the second half of the session and had to settle for second, which he nearly lost. Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa made a late move that took him to within .003 of a second of Lorenzo’s time. Pedrosa was a question mark coming to Jerez, having come off surgery on his left shoulder just after the Spanish GP in Jerez. Whether the shoulder will hold up over race distance remains to be seen, but this was certainly an encouraging start. Cycle News
Finishing on identical lap times of 1’38:102 were Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team) and Casey Stoner (Repsol Honda) after their much talked about coming together from the last race in Jerez. The Italian has had five wins here in the premier class. The Australian spent a large portion of the session in the pits as he did in the morning. Stoner claimed his maiden victory in the intermediate category back here in 2005.
Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) was again solidly in the top ten, keen to put the disappointment of Jerez behind him. The American has had two fourth places here in 2006 and 2008 which are his best results at this circuit. Rookie Karel Abraham (Cardion ab Motoracing) was seventh quickest in only his third race of the MotoGP campaign. The Czech rider finished in 10th place here last season. motogp.com
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