FIM MotoGP World Championship Valencia, Spain November 6, 2009 Free Practice One Results: MotoGP (all on Bridgestone tires): 1. Casey STONER (Ducati), 1:32.813 2. Jorge LORENZO (Yamaha), 1:33.195 3. Dani PEDROSA (Honda), 1:33.241 4. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha), 1:33.499 5. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda), 1:33.910 6. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda), 1:34.106 7. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha), 1:34.123 8. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda), 1:34.382 9. Loris CAPIROSSI (Suzuki), 1:34.427 10. Nicky HAYDEN (Ducati), 1:34.462 11. Mika KALLIO (Ducati), 1:34.696 12. Marco MELANDRI (Kawasaki), 1:34.859 13. James TOSELAND (Yamaha), 1:34.865 14. Toni ELIAS (Honda), 1:34.873 15. Ben SPIES (Yamaha), 1:35.052 16. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki), 1:35.131 17. Gabor TALMACSI (Honda), 1:35.258 18. Aleix ESPARGARO (Ducati), 1:35.458 250cc GP: 1. Hector BARBERA (Aprilia), 1:36.185 2. Alex DEBON (Aprilia), 1:36.502 3. Alvaro BAUTISTA (Aprilia), 1:36.866 4. Hiroshi AOYAMA (Honda), 1:36.924 5. Raffaele DE ROSA (Honda), 1:37.099 6. Marco SIMONCELLI (Gilera), 1:37.168 7. Hector FAUBEL (Honda), 1:37.213, crash 8. Mike DI MEGLIO (Aprilia), 1:37.273 9. Ratthapark WILAIROT (Honda), 1:37.426 10. Thomas LUTHI (Aprilia), 1:37.806 11. Jules CLUZEL (Aprilia), 1:37.848 12. Mattia PASINI (Aprilia), 1:38.012 13. Alex BALDOLINI (Aprilia), 1:38.135 14. Lukas PESEK (Aprilia), 1:38.282 15. Shoya TOMIZAWA (Honda), 1:38.286 125cc GP: 1. Julian SIMON (Aprilia), 1:42.536 2. Nicolas TEROL (Aprilia), 1:42.729 3. Marcel SCHROTTER (Honda), 1:42.747 4. Sergio GADEA (Aprilia), 1:42.925 5. Pol ESPARGARO (Derbi), 1:43.101 6. Marc MARQUEZ (KTM), 1:43.194, crash 7. Joan OLIVE (Derbi), 1:43.271 8. Simone CORSI (Aprilia), 1:43.634 9. Sandro CORTESE (Derbi), 1:43.644 10. Efren VAZQUEZ (Derbi), 1:43.658 20. Cameron BEAUBIER (KTM), 1:44.436 More, from a press release issued by Repsol Honda: GRAND PRIX OF VALENCIA MotoGP Round 17 Valencia circuit, 6-8 November Date : 06/11/2009 Weather : Dry Temperature : 20 degrees C (Air), 17 degrees C (Track) Humidity : 33 per cent REPSOL HONDA TEAM OFF AND RUNNING AT VALENCIA The Repsol Honda Team made a solid start during the first practice session for the Grand Prix of Valencia today, as the MotoGP field began preparations for the final race of the season. Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso finished in third and eighth positions in the hour-long session at the 4.005km (2.489-mile) track – a venue characterized by second- and third-gear corners overlooked by vast grandstands. Come Sunday, this impressive arena will be packed solid with upwards of 120,000 passionate Spanish fans. Pedrosa, who loves this track and enjoys huge support here, immediately revealed his intentions by going to the top of the timesheets after fifteen minutes, and staying there for the first half of the session. At the end of the hour-long practice period, which was affected by strong winds buffeting the riders, Pedrosa was in third place, and tomorrow the 24-year-old Spaniard will be looking to close the gap to Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo in front of him. Pedrosa is the only rider to have won in all three classes at the Ricardo Tormo circuit, and he would dearly love to sign off the 2009 season with another win here. Dovizioso spent the hour honing suspension settings and tuning his RC212V to the tight and twisty nature of this circuit. He too was affected by the wind and found it especially intrusive when the front wheel lifts under power while exiting the many slow-speed corners at Valencia. With a good idea for the direction he and the team will now take, Dovizioso is confident he can climb the timesheets in tomorrow’s two sessions: a further hour of practice in the morning, and the afternoon’s qualifying period to decide grid-slots for Sunday’s 30-lap race. DANI PEDROSA 3rd 1m 33.241s “For a first practice session, this was OK today and we completed some valuable laps to famliarise ourselves with this circuit again. It was really windy out there and this affected the machine more in some corners than others – like in the third sector where it was quite difficult to control the bike. Still, we have time to solve this tomorrow. Also, it’s good that we got used to the windy conditions because it looks like we’ll have them for the whole weekend. The track surface was not totally clean, but actually the grip was good and the Bridgestone tyres were working well. There’s a gap to the riders in front and we need to make some improvements for tomorrow so that we’ve got the best chance of qualifying well. I really want to win this race – it’s more important to me than finishing third in the championship – so we need to work really hard to give us a good chance on Sunday.” ANDREA DOVIZIOSO 8th 1m 34.382s “We got through quite a lot of work this afternoon, focusing mainly on some options for suspension set-up. We didn’t have the time to test all the ideas we have for this circuit, so tomorrow we will continue working. I’m confident we can improve and move forward because eighth is not where I want to be. The track conditions today were not too bad, but the strong wind made controlling the bike more difficult, and this took some getting used to. Here the bike usually tends to wheelie because there are a lot of slow corners, and the strong wind accentuated this issue. The characteristics of this circuit mean that it takes a while to get into a good rhythm, and so we did more laps on each run out of the pits – around 10-13 laps each time, which is more than we do at other circuits. Tomorrow we’ll focus on getting a good qualifying position to give us the best chance on Sunday.” KAZUHIKO YAMANO – REPSOL HONDA TEAM MANAGER “We’re looking to finish the season with strong results from both Dani and Andrea here and the session today gave us the chance to move towards that. We know Dani is more than capable of winning here, so he and his crew will be totally focused on finding a machine setting that will allow him to fight for that. Andrea too can build on the performance from today and we can work with the information gathered during first practice. Tomorrow, the team needs to perform at a high level in both sessions to give us the best possible results in qualifying.” Practice Results 1 Casey Stoner 1m 32.813 AUS DUCATI Ducati Marlboro Team 2 Jorge Lorenzo 1m 33.195 SPA YAMAHA Fiat Yamaha Team 3 Dani Pedrosa 1m 33.241 SPA HONDA Repsol Honda Team 4 Valentino Rossi 1m 33.499 ITA YAMAHA Fiat Yamaha Team 5 Randy De Puniet 1m 33.910 FRA HONDA LCR Honda MotoGP 6 Alex De Angelis 1m 34.106 SMR HONDA San Carlo Honda Gresini 7 Colin Edwards 1m 34.123 USA YAMAHA Tech 3 Yamaha 8 Andrea Dovizioso 1m 34.382 ITA HONDA Repsol Honda Team 9 Loris Capirossi 1m 34.427 ITA SUZUKI Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 10 Nicky Hayden 1m 34.462 USA DUCATI Ducati Marlboro Team 11 Mika Kallio 1m 34.696 FIN DUCATI Pramac Racing 12 Marco Melandri 1m 34.859 ITA KAWASAKI Hayate Racing Team 13 James Toseland 1m 34.865 GBR YAMAHA Tech 3 Yamaha 14 Toni Elias 1m 34.873 SPA HONDA San Carlo Honda Gresini 15 Ben Spies 1m 35.052 USA YAMAHA Tech 3 Yamaha 16 Chris Vermeulen 1m 35.131 AUS SUZUKI Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 17 Gabor Talmacsi 1m 35.258 HUN HONDA Scot Racing Team MotoGP 18 Aleix Espargaro 1m 35.458 SPA DUCATI Pramac Racing Circuit information First race 1999 GPs held 10 Laps 30 Race distance 120.150km / 74.670miles Track length 4.005km / 2.489miles Track width 12m Longest straight 0.876km / 0.544miles Corners 14 (5 right, 9 left) Pole position Right More, from a press release issued by Fiat Yamaha: LORENZO AND ROSSI BEGIN SEASON FINALE IN SECOND AND FOURTH The final Grand Prix weekend of the season got underway at Valencia in Spain today in bright sunshine, with Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi finishing the first day of practice in second and fourth respectively. The Fiat Yamaha pairing have little left to achieve this weekend but both are determined to close the season on a high note, with Lorenzo especially looking to confirm second place in the championship. It was the young Mallorcan Lorenzo who spent the most time at the top of the time sheets today as he quickly found a comfortable setting for his M1 around the twisty 4.005 km circuit, one of only three circuits on the calendar where he has never won. In the last five minutes he was edged into second by Casey Stoner, but he continued to improve his time right up to the flag, ending up 0.382 seconds off the Australian. Rossi made a similarly strong start, spending the session working through some different setting solutions and making a steady improvement throughout. The Italian, who won his ninth world championship last time out in Sepang, finished the day just behind Dani Pedrosa in fourth place. Jorge Lorenzo Position: 2nd Time: 1’33.195 Laps: 32 “This is one of the few places I haven’t won in my career so I really want to try! Today was very good, I did many laps with a strong rhythm and with a consistent and fast pace. We are feeling strong and we hope we can continue to be competitive. Tonight we will look at the data from today and consider how we can make more improvements for tomorrow so that I can try to be on the front row once again.” Valentino Rossi Position: 4th Time: 1’33.499 Laps: 30 “It’s really nice to be riding as the world champion without having to think about points and now I just want to finish the year with a good race. Today was not so bad, I’m not happy with fourth but we’re not far off and we worked well on the bike. We had some different settings to work on to try to improve our performance at this track and then at the end I was able to do some good laps all together. Tomorrow we have quite a lot of work to do, we need to try the harder Bridgestone tyre and try to make another step with the setting, but so far we have done a good job.” Daniele Romagnoli Team Manager “This was a very good start for us, as we’ve made at most races this season. We used the same Bridgestone tyre for the whole session and we had a good pace today, but we need to keep improving because we know that the eventual race pace will be faster than today’s. We’ve already got a lot of data and some additional rider requests, so we will work on those tomorrow.” Davide Brivio Team Manager “In preparation for this session we had planned some different setting solutions to work through and so we spent the hour checking them carefully. Now we will compare the data we’ve gathered and use this going forward to tomorrow. Valentino already has a good pace and felt comfortable on the bike today so we are confident of being in good shape for the weekend.” More, from a press release issued by Bridgestone: Stoner fastest on soft front and hard rear Bridgestone slicks Round 17: Valencia GP Free Practice Ricardo Tormo Circuit, Friday 6 November 2009 Bridgestone slick compounds available: Front: Soft, Medium. Rear: Medium, Hard (asymmetric) Ducati Team’s Casey Stoner went fastest in the opening free practice in Valencia after changing to the harder rear Bridgestone slick in the closing stages of the session. Stoner, like most other riders, used the softer front tyre throughout the session. He was the only rider to lap under the 1m 33second barrier. Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo was second on the softer front and rear slicks and Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa was third using the harder rear, and the two Spaniards were separated by 0.04seconds. After winning the World Champion title in Malaysia, Valentino Rossi also favoured the softer tyres to record the fourth fastest time. With the date of the race falling later in the year than last season, conditions during the session were cooler, meaning that most riders favoured the softer options for their improved warm-up performance and grip at lower temperatures. Tohru Ubukata Manager, Bridgestone Motorcycle Tyre Development Department “For the duration of the session both Jorge and Valentino completed race distance on just one set of our softer option front and rear tyres, and their best laps came just two from the end, so this shows that the softer options have a good mix of durability and performance. “On their last runs out of the pits Casey and Dani used the harder rear tyre to record their best times, and Casey went fastest on his penultimate lap, showing that both of the compounds we have brought here to Valencia are suitable. Colin and Andrea also tried the harder front and rear slicks during the session. “The temperature this afternoon was cooler than it was last year and the track condition was not so good this time as it was dusty, so I think that this is why the lap times are slightly slower, but it’s good to see that even in these conditions both tyre specifications are working well. Based on the closeness of times of certain groups of riders today and the nature of the circuit, I think we will see some good tit-for-tat battles on Sunday. The times are verging on the lap record already after only the first session, and especially as the track clears throughout the weekend, there is every chance we could see another lap record set on our tyres this season.” Top ten from free practice (Friday 13:55 14:55 GMT+1) Pos Rider Team Practice Time Gap Tyres 1 Casey Stoner Ducati Team 1m32.813s Bridgestone slicks 2 Jorge Lorenzo Fiat Yamaha Team 1m33.195s +0.382s Bridgestone slicks 3 Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda Team 1m33.241s +0.428s Bridgestone slicks 4 Valentino Rossi Fiat Yamaha Team 1m33.499s +0.686s Bridgestone slicks 5 Randy de Puniet LCR Honda MotoGP 1m33.910s +1.097s Bridgestone slicks 6 Alex de Angelis San Carlo Honda Gresini 1m34.106s +1.293s Bridgestone slicks 7 Colin Edwards Monster Yamaha Tech3 1m34.123s +1.310s Bridgestone slicks 8 Andrea Dovizioso Repsol Honda Team 1m34.382s +1.569s Bridgestone slicks 9 Loris Capirossi Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m34.427s +1.614s Bridgestone slicks 10 Nicky Hayden Ducati Team 1m34.462s +1.649s Bridgestone slicks Weather: Dry. Ambient 20°C; Track 25°C (Bridgestone measurement) More, from a press release issued by Rizla Suzuki: Capirossi ninth on final Friday Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi finished the final Friday practice of the 2009 MotoGP season in ninth position at Valencia in Spain today. Capirossi (1’34.427, 28 laps) suffered with some set-up issues in the hour-long session causing him some vibration on his Suzuki GSV-R. Loris and his crew didn’t have time to resolve the matter completely and will now look at the data overnight to see where the changes can be made to improve further. Chris Vermeulen (P16, 1’35.131, 26 laps) has been suffering with a heavy cold since arriving in Valencia and it didn’t help him today as he found himself sneezing and coughing inside his helmet as he rode his machine around the 4,005m Spanish circuit. If he can shake off his sickness, Vermeulen will undoubtedly be higher up the leader-board as the weekend progresses. With a cool wind blowing over the track today the surface temperature only got up to 17ºC, despite pleasant overhead autumnal sunshine. Ducati’s Casey Stoner set the fastest time of the day. Capirossi and Vermeulen have one more free practice session tomorrow morning, before the qualifying session to determine grid positions for Sunday’s event takes place in the afternoon. The final race of the 2009 season gets underway at 14.00hrs local time (13.00hrs GMT) On Sunday 8th November. Loris Capirossi: “We had a bit of vibration from the bike today and with only an hour of practice we struggled to find enough time to get the best solution to fix it. We did a couple of setting changes to try and improve it and in the end we found a good situation, but it is still not perfect. We have to look at the data to find out what is causing the vibration and try to improve things for tomorrow. I am sure if we can get things right we can be very fast here and have a good end to the season!” Chris Vermeulen: “It’s been quite cold here in Valencia today and at start of the session I found it quite difficult to get heat into the tyres, which meant I couldn’t get them working as well as I would have liked. After we overcame that the bike worked quite well and I started to make my way up the timesheets. We made a lot of progress throughout the session even though we came across a couple of issues that made me to lose a bit of track time and possibly caused me to miss out on the period in the session where I could have got my best lap-time. I think we’ll be able to get things spot-on for tomorrow and go a lot quicker than we did today. I’ve not been feeling too good this week, but hopefully all’s well that ends well and I can get over it quickly and be back on the pace in time for the race.” Paul Denning Team Manager: “Loris was very quick in the dry in Sepang last time out and the base geometry we found there hasn’t transferred quite as well to the colder conditions in Valencia this afternoon. The gap to the front group is not too bad and if we can improve the feedback and feeling from the front of the bike for Loris then the lap-time will come much easier. “The main thing for Chris seems to be to get him over the cold he is suffering from – it must be difficult to hit the apexes when you are coughing so hard your eyes are closing! There weren’t so many changes to Chris’s bike during the course of the session and the balance doesn’t look too bad, so if his condition improves tomorrow than I think we can anticipate a big step forward. Both the guys also only used one set of tyres for the whole session, whereas some of the other riders changed to the harder rear in the latter stages and found some lap-time. Overall we are hoping for better things on Saturday and a good end to the 2009 season.” More, from a press release issued by LCR Honda: DE PUNIET FIFTH QUICKEST AT VALENCIA GP OPENING DAY Valencia, 06 November: LCR Honda MotoGP Team racer Randy de Puniet began to set up his Honda machine with the fifth fastest time in today’s free practice session at the Ricardo Tormo circuit which hosts the ultimate round of 2009 season this week end. Todays session was held in warm and windy conditions with air temperature reaching a comfortable 20 degrees and the fastest time of the day was set by Casey Stoner on Ducati (1’32.813). The Frenchman aboard the Honda RC212V slid off in Malaysia and is determined to make amends for that mistake with a great end to the season at Valencia. Randy worked through his set-up options for Sunday’s 30-lap race clocking his best lap time of 1’33.910 on last lap. De Puniet 5th 1’33.910 De Puniet 5th: “It’s been a good start here today. After the technical issues we faced in Sepang we came back to our base set up and it all seems to be working quite well! The bike is more stable in the concerns thus I can easily lap consistently fast. There are some small things to adjust in tomorrow’s sessions but the overall package makes me quite confident for the race”. More, from a press release issued by Monster Yamaha Tech 3: Edwards and Toseland set competitive times in Valencia The final round of the 2009 MotoGP world championship kicked off in cloudy and windy conditions at Valencia this afternoon, Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team duo Colin Edwards and James Toseland posting the seventh and 13th best times respectively. Still firmly in contention for fifth place in the overall points standings going into Sunday’s final race, Edwards worked on two different settings in cool temperatures this afternoon and found his second YZR-M1 machine a stronger package at the Ricardo Tormo circuit. Experimenting with a different geometry setting, Edwards was able to post a best time 1.34.123 as changes gave him improved front-end handling performance from his YZR-M1 ma chine. British rider James Toseland is confident of big improvements as he started his final appearance for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad with the 13th quickest time. Quickly reacquainting himself with the YZR-M1 800cc machine after a successful debut on Yamaha’s R1 World Superbike machine in Portimao recently, Toseland overcame a front tyre vibration issue and strong winds to clock a best time of 1.34.865. Colin Edwards 7th 1.34.123 27 laps “It felt like hard work out there today. This is a physical track and maybe it’s just because I’m getting older but the times didn’t come easy at the start. But at the end I felt pretty good. We started with two bikes and the first one I went out on I thought it was really good. The second bike was set-up based on comments I gave my guys at Monster Yamaha Tech 3 and Yamaha in Malaysia and it had different geometry settings. And it really helped the bike turn a lot better. One thing I’ve been missing a lot this year is the bike turning well. Once I get it leaned over and into the corner, my feeling was the bike was always running straight on for a while. But now when I get into the corner I continue turning instead of going wide. Fifth place in the world championship is still up for grabs on Sunday and while it is a tall order, I’ll be giving it my all for Monster Yamaha Tech 3. Those four guys at the front are in a different league and I need (Andrea) Dovizioso to have a bad weekend, but I won’t be holding back.” James Toseland 13th 1.34.865 27 laps “I needed some time to adapt myself back to the bike having done over 200 laps on the R1 in Portimao last week. I felt quite strong in the early part of the session. But when I wanted to start picking up the pace and going for some decent lap times I had a problem with the front tyre. There was a bit of a vibration issue and with the changes I lost time. The wind made it quite tricky as well today. In some faster sections of the track it was blowing me slightly off line. We gained some good information though and with ideas that we have to improve for tomorrow I’m convinced I can make progress up the timesheets. It is my last race for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team and I’m determined to finish with a strong result.” More, from a press release issued by Marlboro Ducati: STONER A STEP AHEAD ON DAY ONE IN VALENCIA, HAYDEN TENTH Casey Stoner set the pace on the opening day of the Gran Premio Generali de la Comunitat Valenciana, lapping almost four tenths quicker than his closest rival Jorge Lorenzo. With cool track temperatures of just 17ºC the onus for the riders was on finding grip around the short but technically demanding circuit and despite starting out with a setting he wasn’t comfortable with Stoner worked hard with his mechanics to find a solution by the end of the hour-long free practice. Nicky Hayden also worked tirelessly throughout the session, suffering from similar difficulties to Stoner but without managing to find the key breakthrough. The American also cited a dirty track surface for slower track times than usual, with Stoner the only rider able to break the 1’33 mark today. CASEY STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team) (1st; 1’32.813) “We didn’t start out with a very effective base setting and I didn’t have a good feeling for the first few laps. Basically we didn’t have enough weight on the front and because of the track conditions it was difficult to get heat into the tyre, especially on the right side because there aren’t many right turns here. We knew what we needed to from the bike so I kept coming in and making small adjustments until we found it. It’s quite good, we still need to improve a lot but I’m really pleased with the job we did today and if we can make the improvements we have planned for tomorrow then we’ll be in a very good situation.” NICKY HAYDEN (Ducati Marlboro Team) (10th; 1’34.462) “It was a tough session and I had certainly hoped to be a lot closer to the pace than that today. It’s a track I really like and we know the bike works well here so the team and I have a lot of work to do. Track temperatures were quite low and I had a really hard time getting the tyres working on the front and rear. It’s also quite windy so I’m not sure if maybe a lot of sand and dirt has blown onto the track but it’s definitely tricky to find grip out there. That’s our target for tomorrow anyway.” More, from a press release issued by Dorna Communications: In fine sunshine at the Ricardo Tormo circuit on Friday, Ducati Marlboro’s Casey Stoner started the Gran Premio Generali de la Comunitat Valenciana weekend in the manner which he hopes will secure a third straight race win as he recorded the best lap time in Free Practice 1. After overcoming some early dissatisfaction with the response of his Desmosedici GP9, Stoner set a best time of 1’32.813 to leave Jorge Lorenzo second fastest. Fiat Yamaha rider Lorenzo aims to secure second spot in the World Championship standings this weekend, ahead of Stoner, and he followed the Australian on the timesheet by a margin of 0.382s. In the wake of his confidence-boosting first wet podium in Malaysia last time out, Dani Pedrosa was third on the timesheet as he kept a close tab on Lorenzo, timing his fastest lap just 0.046s slower. World Champion Valentino Rossi completed the top four after experiencing a rare run-off midway through the session. The Italian star came in almost half a second ahead of Randy de Puniet, who bounced back from his high-side crash and DNF at Sepang to ride a good session and record the fifth-fastest lap. Alex de Angelis (San Carlo Honda Gresini), Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3), Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda), Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati Marlboro) all recorded top-ten times in the session as well, with wildcard Ben Spies 15th on his factory Yamaha. 250cc A fastest lap of 1’36.185 from Héctor Barberá made him the quickest rider in the 250cc session, with Hiroshi Aoyama (Scot Racing) and Marco Simoncelli (Metis Gilera) both recording top-six times. Barberá, who beat Simoncelli to second place in Malaysia via a photo finish, was 0.317s faster than second placed Alex Debon (Aeropuerto-Castello-Blusens) in this practice, with Álvaro Bautista (Mapfre Aspar Team) registering the third-fastest lap of the session. Aoyama, who needs just an eleventh-placed finish in Sunday’s race to secure the 2009 World title ahead of Simoncelli regardless of where the Italian finishes was fourth quickest around the track, as his best lap was just over 0.7s off Barberá’s pace. Aoyama’s Italian Scot Racing team-mate Raffaele de Rosa followed him in the order, with Simoncelli sixth-fastest at just under a full second slower than the pace set by Barberá. 125cc Julián Simón was the leading rider in the 125cc practice, setting a fastest time of 1’42.536 on the 21st of his 22 laps, as he led next fastest in line Nico Terol (Jack & Jones Team) by a 0.193s gap. Marcel Schrotter impressed on his Honda as the Toni Mang Team rider led the timesheet at one point, eventually placing third in the timings, whilst a late crash for Simón’s Bancaja Aspar team-mate Sergio Gadea did not prevent him from setting the fourth-fastest time. Gadea had already lapped at almost 0.4s slower when a low-side ended his session with five minutes remaining, with Pol Espargaró also inside the top five. More, from a press release issued by Pramac Racing Team: DIFFICULT BEGINNING FOR THE PRAMAC RACING TEAM IN VALENCIA The Grand Prix of the Valenciana comunidad didn’t begin in the best way possible for the Pramac Racing Team: Mika Kallio has concluded with the eleventh best lap time while his teammate, Aleix Espargarò, didn’t manage to go further than the eighteenth position. The Catalan rider will have to sensibly improve in the two hours at his disposal tomorrow to conquer a good placement on Sunday’s starting grid. Kallio, who didn’t start well in the first minutes of the practice, made it to improve in the final part of the session getting really close to the top ten, minimum result acceptable for the 2009 MotoGP rookie of the year. Fabiano Sterlacchini – Pramac Racing Technical Director “Today, notwithstanding the eleventh place doesn’t satisfy us, we have done a good work making it to improve Mika’s best lap time of last winter test ridden on this track last November. Of course our objective is to give to Mika the possibility to start on the best position possible on Sunday’s starting grid and tomorrow we will have to work really hard. From Aleix we didn’t expect to see him straight away in the top ten, but we are sure he will manage to sensibly improve tomorrow.” Mika Kallio – Pramac Racing rider “Today we have encountered some problem in the front and the rear part of the bike: for what it concerned the front part we have found the solution to use tomorrow, while we still have to analyze the data to find which technical solution to use to improve the rear tyre grip. I lose too much time from the beginning to half of each turn and here is where we have to improve the most.” Aleix Espargarò – Pramac Racing rider “There was a lot of wind today on track and this has complicated a bit my work. In the first half of the session I couldn’t manage to push to the maximum, but around the end of the session we have found some good solutions that gives us good hopes for the rest of the season. I don’t like this situation because also in the previous weekend on the Fridays I couldn’t be really competitive. It will be a really important aspect to improve next year.” More, from a press release issued by Yamaha: The final Grand Prix weekend of the season got underway at Valencia in Spain today in bright sunshine, with Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi finishing the first day of practice in second and fourth respectively. The Fiat Yamaha pairing have little left to achieve this weekend but both are determined to close the season on a high note, with Lorenzo especially looking to confirm second place in the championship. It was the young Mallorcan Lorenzo who spent the most time at the top of the time sheets today as he quickly found a comfortable setting for his M1 around the twisty 4.005 km circuit, one of only three circuits on the calendar where he has never won. In the last five minutes he was edged into second by Casey Stoner, but he continued to improve his time right up to the flag, ending up 0.382 seconds off the Australian. Rossi made a similarly strong start, spending the session working through some different setting solutions and making a steady improvement throughout. The Italian, who won his ninth world championship last time out in Sepang, finished the day just behind Dani Pedrosa in fourth place. Jorge Lorenzo – Position: 2ndTime: 1’33.195Laps: 32 “This is one of the few places I haven’t won in my career so I really want to try! Today was very good, I did many laps with a strong rhythm and with a consistent and fast pace. We are feeling strong and we hope we can continue to be competitive. Tonight we will look at the data from today and consider how we can make more improvements for tomorrow so that I can try to be on the front row once again.” Valentino Rossi – Position: 4thTime: 1’33.499Laps: 30 “It’s really nice to be riding as the world champion without having to think about points and now I just want to finish the year with a good race. Today was not so bad, I’m not happy with fourth but we’re not far off and we worked well on the bike. We had some different settings to work on to try to improve our performance at this track and then at the end I was able to do some good laps all together. Tomorrow we have quite a lot of work to do, we need to try the harder Bridgestone tyre and try to make another step with the setting, but so far we have done a good job.” Daniele Romagnoli – Team Manager “This was a very good start for us, as we’ve made at most races this season. We used the same Bridgestone tyre for the whole session and we had a good pace today, but we need to keep improving because we know that the eventual race pace will be faster than today’s. We’ve already got a lot of data and some additional rider requests, so we will work on those tomorrow.” Davide Brivio – Team Manager “In preparation for this session we had planned some different setting solutions to work through and so we spent the hour checking them carefully. Now we will compare the data we’ve gathered and use this going forward to tomorrow. Valentino already has a good pace and felt comfortable on the bike today so we are confident of being in good shape for the weekend.” Edwards and Toseland set competitive times in Valencia The final round of the 2009 MotoGP world championship kicked off in cloudy and windy conditions at Valencia this afternoon, Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team duo Colin Edwards and James Toseland posting the seventh and 13th best times respectively. Still firmly in contention for fifth place in the overall points standings going into Sunday’s final race, Edwards worked on two different settings in cool temperatures this afternoon and found his second YZR-M1 machine a stronger package at the Ricardo Tormo circuit. Experimenting with a different geometry setting, Edwards was able to post a best time 1.34.123 as changes gave him improved front-end handling performance from his YZR-M1 ma chine. British rider James Toseland is confident of big improvements as he started his final appearance for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad with the 13th quickest time. Quickly reacquainting himself with the YZR-M1 800cc machine after a successful debut on Yamaha’s R1 World Superbike machine in Portimao recently, Toseland overcame a front tyre vibration issue and strong winds to clock a best time of 1.34.865. Colin Edwards – Position: 7thTime: 1’34.123 Laps: 27 “It felt like hard work out there today. This is a physical track and maybe it’s just because I’m getting older but the times didn’t come easy at the start. But at the end I felt pretty good. We started with two bikes and the first one I went out on I thought it was really good. The second bike was set-up based on comments I gave my guys at Monster Yamaha Tech 3 and Yamaha in Malaysia and it had different geometry settings. And it really helped the bike turn a lot better. One thing I’ve been missing a lot this year is the bike turning well. Once I get it leaned over and into the corner, my feeling was the bike was always running straight on for a while. But now when I get into the corner I continue turning instead of going wide. Fifth place in the world championship is still up for grabs on Sunday and while it is a tall order, I’ll be giving it my all for Monster Yamaha Tech 3. Those four guys at the front are in a different league and I need (Andrea) Dovizioso to have a bad weekend, but I won’t be holding back.” James Toseland – Position: 13thTime: 1’34.865Laps: 27 “I needed some time to adapt myself back to the bike having done over 200 laps on the R1 in Portimao last week. I felt quite strong in the early part of the session. But when I wanted to start picking up the pace and going for some decent lap times I had a problem with the front tyre. There was a bit of a vibration issue and with the changes I lost time. The wind made it quite tricky as well today. In some faster sections of the track it was blowing me slightly off line. We gained some good information though and with ideas that we have to improve for tomorrow I’m convinced I can make progress up the timesheets. It is my last race for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team and I’m determined to finish with a strong result.” Spies completes first MotoGP free practice in Valencia Wildcard Sterilgarda Yamaha rider Ben Spies got stuck into the first free practice session of the weekend at the Valencia MotoGP today. Despite being Spies’ first outing on the Yamaha YZR-M1, the American made good progress, improving by nearly five seconds over the course of the session and finishing just over a second off the top five in 15th position. Spies made few changes to his M1, preferring to get as much track time in as possible as he begins to understand the different handling and power characteristics compared to his championship winning Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike. Tomorrow morning will see Spies looking to bring the set up of his bike further in line with his style of riding ahead of his first GP qualifying session on a Yamaha. Ben Spies, Sterilgarda Yamaha Team – Position: 15thTime: 1’35.052 “it was actually a really good first session. Position wise it wasn’t what we are used to but I haven’t ridden a GP bike for a year and it’s the first time I’ve set foot on a Yamaha so to be realistically only a second off being in the mix is pretty good. For the first day, and only 20 laps on the bike I’m happy. I’m starting to understand some of the characteristics of the M1. I’m going to keep baby steps and keep chipping away.” Massimo Meregalli – Sterilgarda Yamaha Team Manager “For the first day here in this world with no experience on this bike or with these tires Ben did as usual a good job, but we didn’t expect anything else. For sure just one practice is not enough time to say too much but we cannot say that we are not satisfied. Ben didn’t want to use more than one set of tyres, he just wanted to spend some time on his bike and get used to the differences from his superbike. Tomorrow he will make another step, I’m very optimistic as I was all season with him.”