Repsol Honda Team on top in Germany

Dani Pedrosa

The Repsol Honda Team had a very positive start on the first day of free practice at the Grand Prix of Germany, Dani Pedrosa finishing on top in both sessions and team mate Casey Stoner very close behind in second in the combined times. The MotoGP paddock was again subjected to adverse weather conditions in Germany, with one dry session and one wet session.

Sachsenring welcomed the riders with sunshine in the morning´s FP1 and both Dani and Casey found pace very quickly, setting up their RC213V machines and working with the soft tires for this unique circuit, with 10 of its 13 corners to the left.

Dani, the winner here in the last two years, set the pace in the morning with a best lap time of 1'22.357 and Casey finished second, just 0.087 off the Spaniard.

In the afternoon, the weather conditions changed completely: it began to get dark and by the time the MotoGP riders were getting ready to go out, the rain had arrived. In the wet conditions, Dani and Casey were again competitive: Dani set the fastest lap (1'32.228), 0.180 ahead of Casey.

DANI PEDROSA 1st 1'22.357

"The weekend has started pretty good for us; I felt comfortable in both the dry and wet conditions, but we only managed half of our plan today. We wanted to test the hard rear tires in the afternoon, because in theory the hardest compound should be working better in this track where you are leaning to the left a long time, and with the soft the bike slides a lot. Anyway, it's been also good to try the bike in the wet for one practice session because it looks like the weather will again be very unstable. Today I've been using the new chassis we received in Assen and the feeling was ok, but weather permitting, I would like to compare both chassis again tomorrow before qualifying. We've had a good start, but we cannot relax; the times are very close here, as usual, and we still have margin to improve".

CASEY STONER 2nd 1'22.444

"We were pretty happy in both conditions today. In the dry we felt comfortable and we had a consistently higher pace than the others and we're confident we can go quite a bit faster so that was definitely a positive. We were struggling a little at the beginning in the wet, we needed to find more rear traction but the conditions weren't perfect as they were changing throughout the session with some parts of the track drying out and then more rain arriving. It was difficult to get a consistent feeling for the track but we were close to the front and fairly happy. Unfortunately we have some bad chatter in the rear, especially on the right hand corners, both in the wet and dry so we need to improve this before the race".

Practice Results

Pos Rider Time Nat Bike Team
1 Dani Pedrosa 1'22.357 SPA HONDA Repsol Honda Team
2 Casey Stoner 1'22.444 AUS HONDA Repsol Honda Team
3 Jorge Lorenzo 1'22.647 SPA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing Team
4 Andrea Dovizioso 1'22.922 ITA YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
5 Cal Crutchlow 1'23.081 GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
6 Hector Barbera 1'23.091 SPA DUCATI Pramac Racing
7 Nicky Hayden 1'23.092 USA DUCATI Ducati Team
8 Alvaro Bautista 1'23.203 SPA HONDA San Carlo Honda Gresini
9 Stefan Bradl 1'23.306 GER HONDA LCR Honda MotoGP
10 Ben Spies 1'23.353 USA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing Team
11 Valentino Rossi 1'23.481 ITA DUCATI Ducati Team
12 Randy De Puniet 1'24.210 FRA ART Aspar Team MotoGP
13 Colin Edwards 1'24.560 USA SUTER NGM Mobile Forward Racing
14 Michelle Pirro 1'24.659 ITA HONDA San Carlo Honda Gresini
15 Yonny Hernandez 1'24.786 COL BQR-FTR BQR
16 Aleix Espargaro 1'24.855 ESP ART Aspar Team MotoGP
17 Ivan Silva 1'25.512 SPA BQR-FTR BQR
18 Franco Battaini 1'25.646 ITA DUCATI Cardion AB Motoracing
19 Mattia Pasini 1'25.839 ITA ART Speed Master
20 Danilo Petrucci 1'25.958 ITA IODA Ioda Racing Project
21 James Ellison 1'26.183 GBR ART Paul Bird Racing