2007 FIM MotoGP World Championship Valencia, Spain November 2, 2007 Free Practice One & Two Combined Best Times: 1. Casey STONER (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:32.968 2. Sylvain GUINTOLI (Yamaha), Dunlop, 1:33.084 3. Dani PEDROSA (Honda), Michelin, 1:33.150 4. Marco MELANDRI (Honda), Bridgestone, 1:33.319 5. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki), Bridgestone, 1:33.501 6. Randy DE PUNIET (Kawasaki), Bridgestone, 1:33.519 7. Alex BARROS (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:33.541 8. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha), Michelin, 1:33.620 9. Nicky HAYDEN (Honda), Michelin, 1:33.650 10. John HOPKINS (Suzuki), Bridgestone, 1:33.680 11. Carlos CHECA (Honda), Michelin, 1:33.831 12. Makoto TAMADA (Yamaha), Dunlop, 1:33.899 13. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha), Michelin, 1:33.972 14. Loris CAPIROSSI (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:34.000 15. Toni ELIAS (Honda), Bridgestone, 1:34.218 16. Shinya NAKANO (Honda), Michelin, 1:34.352 17. Anthony WEST (Kawasaki), Bridgestone, 1:34.413 18. Chaz DAVIES (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:35.029 19. Kurtis ROBERTS (KR-Honda), Michelin, 1:35.335 More, from a press release issued by Gresini Racing Honda: MELANDRI STARTS OUT ON THE FRONT FOOT VALENCIA GP VALENCIA – FREE PRACTICE After finishing second in his last race appearance two weeks ago at Sepang, Marco Melandri carried his good form into the first day of practice at the Grand Prix of Valencia – the final round of the 2007 season. After finishing second in the morning free practice, Melandri ended the day fourth overall – 0.351 seconds behind pacesetter Casey Stoner – giving him confidence for another podium appearance in Sunday’s race. Marco started from a good base setting and instantly found a good feeling with the circuit, which seems to suit the characteristics of his Honda RC212V well. It was a more difficult start to the weekend for his team-mate Toni Elias, who is highly motivated for a top race in his home Grand Prix. The Spaniard will continue working with the team on the setting of his bike tomorrow to try and prepare himself as well as possible for the season’s finale. MARCO MELANDRI (4th, 1’33″319): “I have to say I’m happy with today because we’ve started out on the right foot. The bike is really manageable and has adapted well to this track. Today we tried a few different tyre combinations and tried to work out which was the most suitable. It’s a difficult decision because the track temperature varies a lot, around 12 degrees, from the morning to the afternoon. I’m confident because we’ve found a good base to start from. Now we have to work on the suspension and refine the setting to try and find a little more pace.” TONI ELIAS (15th, 1’34.218): “I’m not happy with this result but it’s only the first day but I’m still confident. We have to keep working on the setting of the bike and the tyre choice. It is a strange circuit and it’s not easy to find the right setting but we’re in Spain, at my home race, and I want to end the season with a good result.” FAUSTO GRESINI: “Marco has worked really well with the team and tested a variety of settings and tyre combinations. We’re happy to be running with the top three on race tyres because Guintoli’s lap was on a qualifier. Marco has taken a good step forward and we’ll keep working tomorrow. Toni has strauggled a bit more with the set up of the bike but we are confident that tomorrow he can improve”. More, from a press release issued by Dorna Communications: Chasing a record points total for a single season this weekend, 2007 World Champion Casey Stoner was the fastest rider in the combined practice standings for the Gran Premio bwin.com de la Comunitat Valenciana on day one in Spain. The Australian was the only rider to go round in under 1’32, clocking his best time of 1’32.968 in the afternoon session. Said time was just over a second ahead of closest rival Sylvain Guintoli, who was using a Dunlop qualifying tyre for his Yamaha M1 in the second outing of the day. Stoner ran off track late on, shortly followed by current runner-up spot occupant Valentino Rossi. Home rider Dani Pedrosa was the third fastest, ahead of Marco Melandri, Chris Vermeulen and Randy de Puniet in a top six consisting of as many different teams, five different bikes and three different tyre manufacturers. Riding what is likely to be his last MotoGP race this weekend, Alex Barros was seventh and just over half a second slower than Stoner’s marker. The Brazilian headed the two riders who commanded all the attention last year at Valencia as the title went down to the wire; Rossi and 2006 MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden. The latter has adorned his leathers with the words ‘Last Call’ for his final race using the number one plate. John Hopkins completed the top ten as he prepares for his last race for Suzuki, whilst Briton Chaz Davies failed to appear for the afternoon session after injuring himself in a morning crash. At the scene of the final race of the 2007 season, four important figures from the MotoGP paddock unveiled the trophy for which the riders will be competing in 2008. Attending the public unveiling of the silver trophy were FIM President Vito Ippolito and Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, alongside former premier class World Champions Kevin Schwantz and Alex Criville. Both of the ex-riders have their own spot on the trophy with their names engraved, as do the other 57 winners of the top prize in motorcycle competition. Speaking to the gathered media and photographers, Mr. Ezpeleta explained the motive behind the change in form for the MotoGP trophy, designed by Barcelona’s Marc Garcia. “With the introduction of the MotoGP class in 2002, we decided to hand out a special trophy in addition to that provided by the FIM. We have now done the same for the change to the 800cc class, which came into effect this year,” stated Mr. Ezpeleta. “We consider the new design important, reflecting the important history of the championship alongside the exciting new era. It was important for us that we have a ‘living part’ of the trophy, that riders can add to and change every year.” 250cc In his first on-track appearance since taking the 2007 250cc World Title in Malaysia, Jorge Lorenzo put himself on provisional pole for his last race in the quarter litre category with a late flying lap. The Spaniard, who moves up to MotoGP next season with Yamaha, put in his 1’35.476 lap in the closing moments of the qualifying session, knocking Kopron Team Scot’s Yuki Takahashi off the top spot with a time half a second quicker than that of the Japanese rider. Shuhei Aoyama and Alex de Angelis, who won what is to date his only 250cc Grand Prix at the Ricardo Tormo circuit last season, complete the provisional front row. Behind them, pole position record holder Hiroshi Aoyama, World Championship runner-up Andrea Dovizioso, Thomas Luthi and Julian Simon and Thomas Luthi all put themselves in a strong position for tomorrow’s final qualifying outing of the year. 125cc As if it was in any doubt that the two title challengers would be battling every step of the weekend, Hector Faubel and Gabor Talmacsi traded blows in the 125cc timesheets on the opening day of practice and qualifying for their final race showdown. The two Aspar team-mates occupy the first two provisional front row positions with a fantastic display of competitive spirit in the afternoon session. Faubel paid Talmacsi back for the Hungarian’s timesheet-topping display from the morning practice, edging out his rival with a 1’39.498 lap of the Valencia track. His fastest time came at the end of the session, just 0.146s ahead of the current World Championship leader. Alongside the duo, third Aspar rider Sergio Gadea made it a clean sweep for the Spanish outfit on day one, tentatively placing him on the starting grid in an intriguing position for the outcome of the championship. Simone Corsi completes the provisional front row. Pencilled in for the second line of attack are perennial poleman Mattia Pasini, in-form Sandro Cortese and Valsir Seedorf Derbi duo Lukas Pesek and Nico Terol. More, from a press release issued by Bridgestone: 2007 finale gets underway with unstoppable Stoner on top in Valencia Round 18 Valencia Free Practice Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Valencia – Friday 2 November 2007 The final race weekend of this year’s MotoGP world championship got underway in earnest at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia today with 2007 world champion Casey Stoner in his customary position at the top of the classification. Stoner’s best lap, 1m32.968s, made him the only man to beat the 1m33s mark during the day with a time just 0.044s adrift of last year’s best race lap set by Loris Capirossi in the final ever race with 990cc machinery in which the Bridgestone-equipped Ducati Corse team took a spectacular 1-2 result. All five of Bridgestone’s teams enjoyed representation in the top seven of the combined practice times today with Honda Gresini rider Marco Melandri leading a quartet of Bridgestone-shod riders in fourth behind Sylvain Guintoli and Dani Pedrosa who made up the top three. Rounding out the top five, Chris Vermeulen made a solid start to the Valencian weekend in fifth, ahead of Kawasaki’s Randy de Puniet and Pramac d’Antin’s Alex Barros. John Hopkins also set a top ten time as he embarks on his final race weekend for the Suzuki team. While Casey Stoner aims for the eleventh race victory of his dominant championship-winning season, Melandri, Hopkins and Vermeulen are embroiled in their own battle for fourth in the classification, the three of them just five points apart heading into this weekend’s race. Tyre Talk with Junichi Kawajiri Bridgestone Motorsport – Manager, Motorcycle Race Tyre Development Did Bridgestone encounter any problems during today’s two sessions? “The basic problem that everyone experienced today was a lack of grip. It is the first day of practice and the track temperatures were quite cool, particularly in the morning, so we expect the track conditions to improve for the rest of the weekend. We conducted a general compound test to look at the performance of the tyres around this track and, from the time sheets it looks like we are in good shape. We have to look at the grip levels over the 30 lap race distance and to find that crucial balance between grip and durability.” Can Bridgestone draw any conclusions from this first day? “It is always difficult to draw any finite conclusions after the first day, even if our performance today has been encouraging. Most riders used only one rear tyre in this morning’s practice, putting more than half a race distance on the same tyre with no obvious drop in performance. In fact a lot of riders set the quickest times of the morning session near to the end of the hour, but that can also be attributed to the improving track. We will have to do consecutive longer runs tomorrow to really understand the competitiveness of the tyres. Valencia is quite a technical track for the bikes so getting the entire package to work in harmony is especially important here. With all five of our teams in the top part of the classification, we have reason to be optimistic.” Bridgestone Combined Free Practice Session Results Pos Rider Team Session 1 (pos) Session 2 (pos) Gap P1 Casey Stoner Ducati 1m33.083s (1) 1m32.968s (1) Fastest P4 Marco Melandri Honda Gresini 1m33.762s (2) 1m33.319s (4) +0.351s P5 Chris Vermeulen Suzuki 1m34.059s (5) 1m33.501s (5) +0.533s P6 Randy de Puniet Kawasaki 1m34.563s (15) 1m33.519s (6) +0.551s P7 Alex Barros Pramac D’Antin 1m33.979s (4) 1m33.541s (7) +0.573s P10 John Hopkins Suzuki 1m34.315s (10) 1m33.680s (10) +0.712s P14 Loris Capirossi Ducati 1m34.242s (8) 1m34.000s (14) +1.032s P15 Toni Elias Honda Gresini 1m34.363s (12) 1m34.218s (15) +1.250s P17 Anthony West Kawasaki 1m35.000s (17) 1m34.413s (17) +1.445s P18 Chaz Davies Pramac D’Antin 1m35.029s (18) Did Not Take Part +2.061s Weather: AM Session / Dry – Air 17°C, Track 18°C, Humidity 49% PM Session / Dry – Air 22°C, Track 30°C, Humidity 42% More, from a press release issued by Fiat Yamaha: SEASON FINALE GETS UNDERWAY IN VALENCIA The final round of the 2007 MotoGP World Championship kicked off in Spain today, as the curtain came up on the traditional season-ending Grand Prix in Valencia. Fiat Yamaha Team riders Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards had a less than perfect start to the weekend however as they lacked traction and finished the day eighth and thirteenth in the combined standings. A cold start to the morning gave way to strong sunshine and blue skies, a weather pattern which looks set to continue throughout the weekend. Rossi finished this morning’s first practice in sixth, with Edwards in ninth, but this afternoon the pair failed to make any further significant progress and both riders will need all the available minutes remaining if they are to try for a victorious end to the season on Sunday. The fastest lap of the day was set by Casey Stoner in a time of 1’32.968, with Rossi 0.652 seconds down in 8th and Edwards further off the pace in thirteenth. Valentino Rossi Position: 8th Time: 1’33.620 Laps: 52 “Today was quite difficult and we really hoped to start in a better way here! We’re pushing at the maximum but at the moment it’s quite hard to ride the bike how I want to. The main problem is that we don’t have grip and, although some tyres and settings are better than others, we’re still sliding a lot. We’ve tried some very different set-ups today but so far we haven’t made much progress so we’re going to have to keep going. Our bike isn’t the fastest and I think we can improve the setting more, but the main problem is to find a way to use the tyres so that we’re in a position to fight. Everyone wants to try to finish the season on a high note so we will look closely at the information we have tonight and try to improve things for tomorrow.” Colin Edwards Position: 13th Time: 1’33.972 Laps: 52 “I think it would be pretty hard to put into words how hard I’m trying out there I think I’d need to write it in red ink for starters! We’re on the limit but we really can’t seem to do anything with it at the moment. I felt like I was going out there with the constant risk of a crash today and I kept pushing because it was the only option to try to find the key, but so far no luck. We’ve got one tyre that’s good on the right and one that’s good on the left but we can’t find a combination that works. We didn’t start well this morning and then we made no progress this afternoon so we’re going to have to come up with something radical to fix it for tomorrow!” Davide Brivio Fiat Yamaha Team Director “We have quite a lot of work to do it seems! We are doing our best to find the right setting for both riders and we’ve tried many different things today to try to help us to get the best from the tyres. So far we’re struggling a bit but tomorrow we will put together all the information we have and hopefully we can find the right way forward. We obviously need to make some big improvements but we have time and we will be working very hard with both riders to come up with the right package.” More, from a press release issued by Konica Minolta Honda: Steady progress for KONICA MINOLTA Honda at final GP of 2007 Shinya Nakano and the KONICA MINOLTA Honda Team made steady progress during the first practice session for this weekend’s final MotoGP race of the year. Shinya and the Team were struggling a little with the lower than expected temperatures at the 2.764-mile circuit. The Team altered the weight balance of their Honda RC212V machine to try and give 30-year-old Nakano more feeling from the front-end of the bike in Valencia’s challenging tight turns. Tomorrow it is expected that temperatures will be higher more like the normal conditions at the Ricardo Tormo circuit for the time of year which should lead to more grip from the circuit and improved laptimes. Once more the times were close amongst the MotoGP riders with just one second covering the top 13 riders. Gianluca Montiron Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA Honda “I think it’s clear today that we have to find the perfect set-up for Shinya, as at the moment he is not able to ride the bike in a comfortable way. We also have a little bit of chattering and also need to finalise our tyre choice for the race. I expect that we will make a big improvement tomorrow, as I know that Shinya with qualifying tyres will be much faster than today with a race tyres! We can see once more that Valencia is a circuit that promotes close racing as the gap between each rider today was very small.” Shinya Nakano Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda (56 laps 1′ 34.352″) “Yet again we’ve had some low temperatures during the first day of practice, although this afternoon conditions were a little better. We tried four different tyres today one or two were not so bad even if overall our position is not so good in 16th. That shows just how close it is again. The positive point is that I didn’t have any big problems today. I tried to follow some of the other guys and see where I was losing time and I could see it was on the exit of the turns. Tomorrow we will make some alterations to improve our rear-end grip as this is important at such a technical track where you need to get out of the turns well to get into the next corner. I enjoy this place, I look back and have some good memories from Valencia especially in the 250 class so tomorrow I want to be much higher up.” Giulio Bernardelle Technical Director, KONICA MINOLTA Honda “So we start our last Grand Prix of 2007. Basically today it was quite a similar situation to the last two or three MotoGP races, where we have found the temperatures quite low much lower than normal here in Valencia for this time of year. Today the temperature on the ground was just 14 degrees. I think this has led us to suffer a little from a lack of grip and particularly the front feeling of the machine, which Shinya says is not so good. Today we tested some tyres and I think we understood which was the best direction to move in. In the afternoon we changed a lot of settings, including moving some weight to the front. This made the situation better, even if the lap time didn’t improve so much. The important point is that Shinya is feeling better with the bike now and we’re expecting higher temperatures tomorrow.” More, from a press release issued by Marlboro Ducati: STONER ON TOP AGAIN, CAPIROSSI WORKING TO IMPROVE Ducati Marlboro Team rider Casey Stoner dominated the first day of practice at Valencia today while Loris Capirossi was 14th quickest, albeit just 1.032 seconds off his team-mate’s best time. World Champion Stoner completed another excellent day’s work at the tight and technically challenging Spanish circuit, where he made his testing debut with Ducati almost exactly one year ago. The remarkable Aussie was 0.116 seconds quicker than closest-challenger Sylvain Guintoli, who used qualifying tyres to achieve his best time while Stoner used only race tyres. Capirossi spent the day working to find more traction and believes he should be able go half a second quicker tomorrow. This weekend the team’s GP7 machines are emblazoned in a special ‘Made in Italy’ livery, featuring the Italian tricolore. The paintjob celebrates Ducati’s historic 2007 season, during which the Ducati Marlboro Team won the riders’, constructors’ and teams’ World Championships, the first time a non-Japanese marque has won biking’s biggest prize in more than three decades. CASEY STONER, fastest, 1m 32.968s “Everything seems to be going pretty well again. We tried a lot of different settings this afternoon to try and make the harder compound rear tyres work, because the conditions are a bit colder than we expected. The tyres we have prefer to work in slightly hotter temperatures, so we’re going to have to make them work a bit harder. A lot of times today we had new tyres on but the setting wasn’t quite right so we weren’t able to do good lap times, then we’d improve the setting using old tyres and we were able to go very fast. We just need a little bit more work on the set-up and we should be able to get pretty close.” LORIS CAPIROSSI, 14th fastest, 1m 34.000s “We are working hard, trying to get better rear traction. We have three types of rear tyre, all a bit too hard for what I need, so we will probably adjust the set-up to put more weight on the rear. Last year we found a good set-up here but the bikes are very different now – you use the edge of the tyres a lot more with the 800s and this can make things difficult for my riding style. Anyway, we will see what we can do with the set-up, and if we do find more traction it should be easy to go five or six tenths faster.” More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki Racing Team: KAWASAKI WORKING TO CONQUER VALENCIA The Grand Prix of Valencia got off to a testing start today for the Kawasaki Racing Team as the first two of the weekend’s practice sessions took place at the technical, 4km Spanish circuit. However, by the end of the afternoon, there were marked improvements in both riders’ performances, indicating things will progress nicely in time for Sunday’s race. After the fast, fluid circuits of the recent overseas rounds, which saw the 800cc Ninja ZX-RR come into its own, the complex, “stop and go” layout of the Valencia track proved somewhat more difficult to conquer instantaneously. However, Randy de Puniet established himself on track by the end of the second session, taking well over a second off his morning practice best. Indeed, with a time of 1’33.519, the 26-year-old Frenchman came in sixth fastest, just 0.551 seconds behind the day’s leading man, Casey Stoner, and a minuscule 0.018 seconds behind Chris Vermeulen. He also recorded a fourth-highest top speed of 298kmh, so ended both sessions with increased confidence after he and his crew had carried out numerous improvements to his bike over the course of the day. De Puniet’s team mate, Anthony West, struggled a bit more, recording a best time of 1’34.413 after the two hours’ worth of practice. However, this is over half a second off his fastest of the morning and still only 1.445 seconds behind Stoner. If some early problems with grip can be solved during tomorrow’s sessions, we could easily see the 26-year-old Australian moving up the field. The Ninja, with its proven and highly-impressive power, lends itself well to more flowing tracks. Shorter, tighter circuits, such as Valencia, make for more of a challenge, something the team relishes. Therefore, there is no shortage of confidence in the Kawasaki garage that both riders will be prepared and fired-up for Saturday afternoon’s qualifying. Randy De Puniet #14 – 6th – Best Lap 1’33.519 “We’ve improved the bike a lot, especially regarding corner entry and exit, and it’s getting better all the time. Rear grip hasn’t been a particularly strong area so we’ve been trying a variety of different settings throughout the day. I’ve been riding with a hard compound tyre on the rear and, because of that, I’ve had quite a few slides today. We did try a softer compound but, whilst it was better with grip, we have our doubts as to whether or not it will be long-lasting enough for the race. The front’s fine though. It’s a tight track and it’s strange to come back to this sort of layout after the circuits we’ve been to lately. Certainly, compared to Malaysia, there’s nothing like as much grip but tomorrow’s another day and we’ll see where we go. My times haven’t been bad at all but, without doubt, with some stronger tyres I could definitely improve my times, raising me a few places and increasing the gap behind me.” Anthony West #13 – 17th – Best Lap 1’34.413 “Admittedly, I didn’t feel much confidence in either the front or rear today; I’m getting a lot of movement both on entry and exit, under braking and acceleration. The grip isn’t sufficient at the moment for me to ride as hard as I’d like to. But we’ve tried a number of things today, especially regarding the suspension, and there have been some improvements. Still, we’re going to discuss it further and come up with a good strategy to increase my confidence so tomorrow I can go faster.” Naoya Kaneko Kawasaki Technical Manager “At the moment, Anthony’s lacking the confidence he needs to go fast into and out of corners, so we need to concentrate on his suspension set up to make it work better for him. He is having some issues with grip at both the front and rear of the bike so we will check our data and make some improvements for his package tomorrow. With Randy, we have also seen some problems with sliding so we will work on both his set up and engine management to sort it out. Regarding tyres, we still need to see what the track temperature will do, and what conditions will be like, before making our final choices but I’m sure we can find the combinations we need. I have no doubt that we can overcome today’s issues and look forward to getting both riders in a position to qualify well tomorrow.” More, from a press release issued by Rizla Suzuki: Promising first day for Rizla Suzuki MotoGP in Spain Rizla Suzuki MotoGP racers Chris Vermeulen and John Hopkins finished the first day of practice for the Valencian Grand Prix inside the top-10 today, with a promise of more to come. Vermeulen (1’33.501, 54 laps) recorded the fifth fastest time at the end of the day’s practice around the 4,005m Ricardo Tormo Circuit, after spending a large amount of the afternoon session comfortably inside the top-three. He is a big fan of the Spanish track and is convinced that tomorrow and race day will bring even greater rewards. Hopkins (1’33.680, 57 laps) was less than two-tenths-of-a-second off team-mate Vermeulen’s time, but due to the competitive nature of MotoGP field it placed the Anglo-American in 10th. Hopkins has already identified a few issues that he will be working on overnight in a bid to get the best result this weekend on his last appearance for Suzuki. Today’s practice was held in warm and sunny conditions with temperatures reaching 22°C. Newly crowned MotoGP World Champion Casey Stoner recorded today’s quickest time on his Bridgestone-shod Ducati. Rizla Suzuki MotoGP has one more free practice session tomorrow morning followed by the all-important qualifying session in the afternoon, where the battle for grid positions will be very significant at this circuit where passing opportunities will be limited in Sunday’s 30-lap race, which gets underway at 14.00hrs local time (13.00hrs GMT). Chris Vermeulen: “It’s good to be back at Valencia, it’s a track I really enjoy and I was quite quick here last year, but I had some bad luck in the race and didn’t finish. The team has done a good job today and have worked really hard. The bike is in great shape and we have done a lot of laps with the same tyres and the durability of the race rubber looks very good. There are some areas we need to work on tomorrow to find that extra half-a-second to get us up the front. We’ll try our best and see how we go, but I’m feeling fairly confident that we will be up there come Sunday!” John Hopkins: “Position wise we aren’t too satisfied with today’s result, but the progress we have made over the day has been quite a big step. Everybody is so close at the moment and a couple of tenths would put us in the top-five. There are few things we need to look at overnight. I have a couple of riding techniques I need to check out and we have a few things to work on with the mechanics which should help us for the rest of the weekend. The Bridgestones seem to be working really well and we will give them a thorough test for durability tomorrow. I need to qualify well tomorrow so I can be up the front from the start of Sunday’s race and stay there for my last race with Suzuki.” Paul Denning Team Manager: “A solid day’s work by both of the riders and the crews. The gaps in lap times are so small that you can’t afford to be compromised anywhere on the track, and despite the fact that our guys are going quite quickly and are amongst the frontrunners, they have both got restrictions that we need to solve to make the bike easier to ride. That said it is an encouraging sign as they are already returning quite competitive lap-times and it seems we can go quite a bit faster when those details are tidied up. “The Valencia circuit is extremely hard to pass on and all the riders are at a very high level at the final race of the year, this will make qualifying even more important tomorrow afternoon and we will be focusing on getting everything right and doing the best job we can in that hour!” More, from a press release issued by Repsol Honda: REPSOL HONDA TEAM BEGINS 2007’s FINAL ASSAULT Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden finished in third and ninth positions at the Ricardo Tormo circuit today as the first day of practice took place ahead of Sunday’s Grand Prix of Valencia. Riding at the third event of the year on home soil, Pedrosa was quick in both sessions as he honed the settings of his RC212V for this tight and challenging track. The 22-year-old Spaniard finished the afternoon hour just 0.182s from pace-setter Casey Stoner having recorded a promising series of laps in the low 1m 33s bracket. Pedrosa was also fastest through the speed trap in the afternoon session. Hayden set a time exactly 0.5s behind his team-mate this afternoon on a day when the top 12 riders were covered by a single second. This placed Hayden in ninth, a position the 26-year-old American was not entirely satisfied with having struggled to find enough grip in the cool conditions at the 4.005km (2.478-mile) circuit. With more Michelin tyre options to evaluate when practice continues tomorrow morning Hayden will look to climb the timesheets ahead of the afternoon’s qualifying session. Dani Pedrosa Combined Free Practice : 3rd 1m 33.150s “Today was a solid start to the weekend and my fastest lap time was pretty good. I was able to run at a reasonably consistent pace in both sessions and when the temperature rose for the afternoon my lap time came down quite a lot. Nonetheless, we still have a few issues to solve with settings and tyre choice if we’re to be truly competitive we need to find a little bit extra. The gap to the front is not big but everybody’s times are very close and a small gap counts for quite a lot at this circuit. Obviously this is an important race for me and for the team. It’s the last race of the year and our last chance to get a good result. Plus it’s a home race for me which adds an extra incentive. We want to win here so we’ve got to continue moving forward to make that possible.” Nicky Hayden Combined Free Practice : 9th 1m 33.650s “Honestly it’s not the start to the weekend we wanted and we’d have liked to have come out of the gate a lot stronger. On the cooler track we’re having a hard time getting the tyres to work as I would like. However, we’ve made a bit of progress today and I definitely hope that tomorrow I can do a lot better personally, and that we can also make some changes to get the bike to work the tyres more effectively. We don’t seem to have the grip that I need at the moment so we’ll see what other options Michelin has available and work on the settings too. There’s still a long way to go this weekend and the two hours of practice tomorrow will be crucial. Qualifying is going to be really important too so we’ll be looking to come out a lot stronger tomorrow.” Makoto Tanaka – Team Manager “It was cold for the morning session and the ground temperature was quite low which affected the grip quite a lot. With the sunshine in the afternoon the temperature rose significantly and the grip improved but still we have some work to do to improve the settings for both riders. I hope for warmer temperatures over the weekend because I think our package is not favoured by the cooler conditions. Still, we didn’t use all the tyre options available to us from Michelin so we have the potential to improve things further.” More, from a press release issued by Repsol Media Service: THIRD BEST TIME FOR THE REPSOL RIDER DANI PEDROSA ON THE FIRST DAY OF PRACTICE IN VALENCIA Nicky Hayden ninth on his return to the Circuito Ricardo Tormo. In 250cc, third position for Shuhei Aoyama and eighth for Julián Simón The final race of the World Motorcycling Championship started today at the Circuito Ricardo Tormo, the first day of practice for the Grand Prix Comunitat Valenciana. In the top category the Repsol Honda Team riders are especially motivated to have a good end to their complicated season at a circuit that holds good memories for both of them. Hayden won the world title here last year and Pedrosa has won three times in Valencia. Today Dani started strongly setting the third best time in the two MotoGP free practice sessions. For the time being he is satisfied with his position, the Repsol rider spent the day above all testing tyres with his mind on Sunday`s race. His teammate Nicky Hayden did not have a very good day, setting the 7th best time in the morning and 9th in the afternoon. But the first day was positive for the Repsol Honda Team 250. Shuhei Aoyama has a provisional place on the first row of the grid after practice, setting the 3rd best time. The Repsol rider rapidly settled down at the Ricardo Tormo circuit, finishing 11th in free practice, and was able to improve on this time in the afternoon session by one second. His teammate Julián Simón was 8th at the end of the day, setting the best time on his final lap when he had to overtake another slower rider, this made him lose a few tenths. The Repsol rider is not satisfied with this result, although he is positive about tomorrow`s sessions, as he knows what he must change on his Honda to get better times. In the smaller categories the Repsol riders Esteve Rabat and Bradley Smith were 10th and 15th respectively in a timed session dominated by the Spaniard Héctor Faubel. Dirt on the track stopped the riders going as fast as they could in the first session, and the riders sought the best tyre selection for the track in Valencia, Rabat was 11th and Smith 12th. In the afternoon the Spanish rider had some engine problems on his bike and these made him feel disappointed with his result, he must take advantage of tomorrow`s session to finally get the right set up on his bike. His teammate Smith, pleased with the set up he got, will try to improve his lap times tomorrow and so get a good position on ther grid. Quotes MotoGP Nicky Hayden >> 1’33.650 seg. 59 laps, 236 Km. “Honestly it’s not the start to the weekend we wanted and we’d have liked to have come out of the gate a lot stronger. On the cooler track we’re having a hard time getting the tyres to work as I would like. However, we’ve made a bit of progress today and I definitely hope tomorrow I can come in and do a lot better personally, and that we can also make some changes to get the bike to work the tyres more effectively. We don’t seem to have the grip that I need at the moment so we’ll see what other options Michelin has available and work on the settings too. There’s still a long way to go this weekend and the two hours of practice tomorrow will be crucial. Qualifying is going to be really important too so we’ll be looking to come out a lot stronger tomorrow.” Dani Pedrosa >> 1’33.150 seg. 53 laps, 212 Km. “Today was a solid start to the weekend and my final lap-time was pretty good. I was able to run at a reasonably consistent pace in both sessions and when the temperature rose for the afternoon my lap time came down quite a lot. Nonetheless, we still have a few issues to solve with settings and tyre choice if we’re to be truly competitive we need to find a little bit extra. The gap is not big but everybody’s times are very close and a small gap counts for quite a lot at this circuit. Obviously this is an important race for me and for the team. It’s the last race of the year and our last chance to get a good result. Plus it’s a home race for me which adds an extra incentive. We want to win here so we’ve got to continue moving forward to make that possible.” 250cc Julián Simón >> 1’36.424 secs. 50 laps, 200 Km. “Today was a positive day, I think we practised well. We tried different set ups on the bike. The result was not totally satisfactory because I ended 8th, but I feel comfortable and I am riding in the right places. Tomorrow we need to improve the traction a little on the rear and also when entering curves, so the team is going to try and work as hard as they can this evening to find a solution. Looking forward to tomorrow I hope that I can get onto the first row. That is my objective.” Shuhei Aoyama >> 1’36.103 secs. 47 laps, 188 Km. “Today was not a bad day, above all if we look at the final result. But the lap time is not as fast as it seems for the position, since we are quite a bit behind Lorenzo. In the morning as well as in the afternoon I was testing different tyres for the race, and I am more or less sure which I will use in the end. But what I need to do now is to improve my pace, especially on the first sector of the circuit, although luckily the changes I have to make are not very big.” 125cc Bradley Smith >> 1’41.054 secs. 39 laps 156 Km. “This first day helped me to try several things and I have things clear now, I was not really trying to set a fast lap time.This morning we tried different tyres, and later we made our decision. We were torn between three types, in the morning we ruled out one of them and in the afternoon one other, so we have things clear concerning the tyres. I think that we still have to change some things on the suspension, not a lot though since the bike is handling quite well. On some curves it tends to go off the line but I think that is easy to correct. So in the morning I will try to improve the lap times, the same in the afternoon and we will see where I end up on the grid.” Esteve Rabat >> 1’40.916 secs. 39 laps, 156 Km. “The truth is that this was a very difficult day and we had quite a few problems with the bike. And in the morning the track was dirty, as the track had not been used for a long time and it was not in good conditions for going fast. In the afternoon things went better, although we still had some problems, above all during the first part of the session, the bike was slow to rev up. I hope that tomorrow I can do things better as I am not satisfied with this result at all.”