Colin Edwards made a fighting start to the new MotoGP season in Qatar tonight, by finishing the opening practice session of 2009 in third position.
The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider, who had signaled his intentions with a series of impressive winter testing performances, set a best lap time behind only Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi as the MotoGP field got accustomed to its new practice format.
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“I’m pretty happy to have started close to the front because it is always important to try and hit the ground running,” said the Texan, who lapped 0.782sec from Stoner’s Ducati. “We played around with the front-end mainly because I had a few issues at the last test in Jerez with movement on the front tyre whenever I tried to really push hard. It was a bit like a speed limit in Jerez but the changes we have made feel really good.
Team-mate James Toseland’s pre-season preparations were stunted by two huge accidents and the Briton - second on the grid during his MotoGP debut at Qatar last year - was content with 11th on the Friday timesheets.
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