The Repsol Honda Team has today returned to action at the Estoril circuit for the first two free practice sessions of the Grand Prix of Portugal nearly a month of inactivity after the Jerez race.
Although the sky threatened rain all morning, the MotoGP riders were thankful to have 90 minutes of dry practice time to start working on the race set up. Dani Pedrosa, Casey Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso hope to improve their set up tomorrow and fight for a good grid position for Sunday’s race.
After setting the third fastest time of the day just 0.064 seconds behind Marco Simoncelli, Dani Pedrosa finished reasonably satisfied with the performance of his left arm after his surgery on the collarbone. The lack of strength has not reappeared, but obviously the muscles in that area are still very tense and painful. He will continue treatment to his shoulder during the course of the weekend.
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MotoGP: Marco Simoncelli Fastest in First Practice at Estoril
MotoGP: Portuguese Grand Prix - First Practice Results
MotoGP: Marco Simoncelli Fastest in Second Practice at Estoril
MotoGP: Portuguese Grand Prix - Second Practice Results
Casey Stoner, fifth today with an identical laptime to fourth place Valentino Rossi, and Andrea Dovizioso, twelfth, need to continue work on the set up looking for solutions to deal with issues under braking in Casey's case, and with the front wheel in Andrea's.
DANI PEDROSA – 3rd 1’37.727
“I think the first day of practice has been positive, it’s the first race after a major operation so it’s only logical that I feel sore and I understand that with a little more time and treatment this will disappear. The pain I feel and some cramps are caused by tension I have in the shoulder area. The last round of laps this afternoon I wanted to extend a little longer to see how I felt, but I made seven laps in a row, which would be about 15 minutes, and this is not enough to make a definitive judgement. Also, if it rains tomorrow it will be important to have a positive practice to get a good position on the grid”.
CASEY STONER – 5th 1’38.102
“To be honest I’m not very happy with how the day has gone, we had a few small issues with the bike that took quite a lot of time out of our sessions today. We could have had a much more productive day than we did as we didn’t really find any improvements, we have to wait for tomorrow and hope for some dry weather because at this moment we’re not too happy with the setting of the bike. We need to improve it a little under braking point and in the middle of the corner where we seem to be struggling to get the bike to turn so if there is some good weather tomorrow we should be able to improve the situation and not be so far”.
ANDREA DOVIZIOSO – 12th 1’38.658
“Today I had two difficult practice sessions and I can’t be happy. I had no feeling with the front so we made several runs to test the modifications, but the situation in general didn’t improve in the afternoon and I struggled to make lap times. Today was dry and I hope tomorrow we can continue to work with the same conditions. According to the weather forecast, it should rain and this would complicate the situation”.
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