SPLIT SECOND SEPARATES LEADERS AT ESTORIL The 14th round of the MotoGP World Championship got underway today as the first practice sessions of the Portuguese Grand Prix took place at Estoril. Dry and sunny weather welcomed the bikes on track and Kawasaki riders, Randy de Puniet and Anthony West, climbed aboard their 800cc Ninja ZX-RRs with the aim of conquering the 4.182km circuit. Both were using the new specification engine they’ve been testing recently and, judging by their performances today, it’s offering them no shortage of accessible power. After both sessions, de Puniet claimed fifth place on the leader board with a fastest lap of 1’38.287 and a top speed of 313.9kmh. The 26-year-old Frenchman and his crew succeeded in finding a good set up almost immediately and, with promising results from the start, he came home just 0.337 seconds off the day’s fastest man, Casey Stoner. He was also fortunate with his early tyre choice as the Bridgestones he used in the morning performed admirably, despite Estoril’s punishing series of corners, including the famously fast and long Parabolica. The day’s progress was hugely encouraging for de Puniet and, despite riding with a broken rib sustained at the last round at Misano, he’s upbeat about his chances in tomorrow’s crucial qualifying session. His team mate, West, was also fabulously fast on his Ninja today. His final placement on combined times was 14th but that figure disguises the fact he was well under a second behind Stoner: just 0.773 seconds, in fact. He has still struggled somewhat with set up, generally getting used to the bike and varying his riding style to suit its numerous demands but, with a top speed of 313.2kmh, fifth on the time sheets, he wasn’t hanging about. Furthermore, he found the new spec engine really came in to its own on the long Estoril start/finish straight: the first time either rider has really seen what it can do at full chat. The Australian completed 56 laps in total today with his fastest time being recorded just before the end of the final session: an indication his progression to confident and capable MotoGP rider is unwavering as he rides through a steep learning curve and, generally, comes up trumps. Certainly, with times so close to riders far more experienced on this machinery, West’s advancement shows no sign of letting up. Randy De Puniet #14 – 5th – Best Lap 1’38.287 “I’ve been happy with the bike since this morning, when we immediately found a good setting. In the first session, I did 24 laps with the same rear tyre and my times were very good. I tried a harder compound but was sliding a bit so I went back to the first one. I didn’t realise my rib was broken until I got it checked out last week and, this morning, it was a bit painful to move on the bike; I was much more confident this afternoon after it had subsided a bit. We’ll try to improve the ZX-RR a little for Saturday but it’s already very good for the race. We just need to perfect some little bits.” Anthony West #13 – 14th – Best Lap 1’38.723 “I’m still struggling a bit with chatter and rear grip but I’m sure we can improve things tomorrow. And I’ve been trying to change the position of the bike in corners and shifting my weight around to make it feel more stable. It feels like it’s moving around a lot in the Parabolica, so I don’t feel too confident through there, but I’m not losing much time through the rest of the track, just little parts here and there. Once we can fix that I can move up and be more consistent. The top speed down the straight’s pretty good and, overall, the new engine felt great: really strong.” Naoya Kaneko Kawasaki Technical Manager “The times today have been very tight, with most riders within a second of each other, so there’s actually very little gap between Randy and Anthony. Randy has a found good package and the machine set up seems to be okay; we just need to polish it a bit with some small adjustments. West has a few problems we can improve upon, but he’s working hard adapting to our bike and developing the skills needed to set it up and he’s really making progress. Our Bridgestone tyres are working well: Estoril is a tough track for rubber, but that’s More, from a press release issued by Bridgestone: Bridgestone-shod Stoner sets Portuguese pace Round 14 Portugal Free Practice Estoril Circuit, Friday 14 September 2007 A mere 1.1 seconds separates the top eighteen riders after the opening day of free practice for Sunday’s Portuguese Grand Prix with Bridgestone-shod Casey Stoner leading the way around the Estoril circuit. Ducati’s Stoner was one of only two riders to lap under 1m38s, setting his quickest lap midway through the afternoon session, and his best lap time of 1m37.950s was just marginally short of the fastest lap in last year’s race (1m37.914s Kenny Roberts Junior). Five Bridgestone-shod riders made it into the top ten of the combined practice times with Kawasaki’s Randy de Puniet on fine form in fifth, Suzuki’s John Hopkins in sixth, Ducati’s Loris Capirossi in seventh and Pramac d’Antin rider Alex Barros, winner of the 2005 Portuguese MotoGP at Estoril, in ninth place. Bridgestone’s work on this opening day was focussed as usual on conducting an initial evaluation of the different tyre specifications that the teams have within their allocation of 14 front tyres and 17 rear tyres this weekend. With under one second difference in the best lap times between 17 riders, it has been one of the most fiercely contested Fridays of the season so far and looks set to offer a thrilling battle over the 28-lap race distance at the later than usual start time of 15.00 local time on Sunday afternoon. Tyre Talk with Tohru Ubukata Bridgestone Motorsport – Manager, Motorcycle Race Tyre Development How did Bridgestone tyres perform on today’s return to the tricky Estoril circuit? “I am pleased with our results from today’s practice, especially considering the difficulties we faced at this Estoril circuit last season. We evaluated medium and hard specification tyres today and the performance of both specs has been promising. Estoril is a very technical circuit with a disproportion of left and right hand turns and the long start-finish straight also demands a lot from the machine, so our teams have also worked a lot on the settings for their bikes while we look at our tyre options for the coming weekend.” Were track conditions as Bridgestone expected? “The track was quite dusty today but this is something that we expect on the first day There was also quite a big difference in track temperature between the morning and afternoon sessions, in fact the track was perhaps hotter than we expected this afternoon. Nevertheless, our tyres still demonstrated a competitive level of performance.” How indicative do you think today’s practice will be for the rest of the weekend? “I am pleased that we have enjoyed a trouble-free opening day, but we must remember that it is only the first day of practice. The field is very close with only one second separating most riders. Our rivals appear to have a strong pace but teams have been working a lot on bike settings so tomorrow will give a clearer picture of relative performance. Even so, I am more satisfied with the improvement that we have shown compared to last season and I hope that we can continue in this way for the rest of the weekend.” Bridgestone Combined Free Practice Session Results Pos Rider Team Session 1 (pos) Session 2 (pos) Gap P1 Casey Stoner Ducati 1m38.105s (1) 1m37.950s (1) Fastest P5 Randy de Puniet Kawasaki 1m38.676s (3) 1m38.287s (5) +0.337s P6 John Hopkins Suzuki 1m39.036s (6) 1m38.471s (6) +0.521s P7 Loris Capirossi Ducati 1m39.446s (11) 1m38.481s (7) +0.531s P9 Alex Barros Pramac D’Antin 1m40.110s (18) 1m38.613s (9) +0.663s P11 Chris Vermeulen Suzuki 1m39.511s (13) 1m38.655s (11) +0.705s P14 Anthony West Kawasaki 1m39.817s (15) 1m38.723s (13) +0.773s P16 Toni Elias Honda Gresini 1m39.641s (14) 1m38.843.s (15) +0.893s P17 Marco Melandri Honda Gresini 1m39.288s (10) 1m38.919s (16) +0.969s P18 Alex Hofmann Pramac D’Antin 1m39.827s (16) 1m39.117s (18) +1.167s Weather: AM Session / Dry – Air 21°C, Track 20°C, Humidity 75% (taken from official MotoGP timing) PM Session / Dry – Air 23°C, Track 35°C, Humidity 59% (taken from official MotoGP timing) More, from a press release issued by Ducati Corse: DAZZLING STONER KEEPS DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM ON TOP AT ESTORIL, CAPIROSSI SEVENTH SO FAR Ducati Marlboro Team rider Casey Stoner continued his dazzling form in Portugal today, leading both morning and afternoon practice sessions around the tortuous and bumpy Estoril circuit. Team-mate Loris Capirossi ended the day in seventh spot, half a second behind the Australian. World Championship leader Stoner, who has topped practice and qualifying at the last four MotoGP events and won the last three races, worked with his usual precision to achieve an impressive pace, his best run averaging low 1m 38s. His closest rival today was Makoto Tamada who used a qualifying tyre to get within 0.039 seconds of Stoner, who used race tyres throughout the day. Capirossi improved during the afternoon but still has more work to do to get the best out of his Desmosedici GP7 at this challenging racetrack. CASEY STONER, fastest, 1m 37.950s “We’re reasonably happy with the way today went, we struggled a little bit this morning and also a little bit in the last part of this afternoon’s session but apart fro that we’re very happy with the settings we’ve got for this track, which is one of the most difficult circuits of the year with a lot bumps and some very technical corners. We’ve nearly done race distance on the tyres, so everything is thing going very well, we just need to try and improve the traction for tomorrow. If we can do that then we should be able to push to improve our lap times and also our pace for the race.” LORIS CAPIROSSI, 7th fastest, 1m 38.481s “I’m struggling a lot here. During the final phase of the afternoon session I was able to find a better set-up and I did some not so bad laps, but we aren’t okay yet. The engine delivery is too aggressive, so I’m having a lot of trouble, most of all in the slow parts of the track. We need to work on the engine management system and the electronics. This is a particular track where you need a perfect bike, because if the engine delivery isn’t right, then the chassis won’t work well and it’s difficult to find the problem. Anyway, we made a step forward at the end of the day and we are hoping to improve some more tomorrow.” More, from a press release issued by Rizla Suzuki: Steady start for Rizla Suzuki MotoGP in Portugal Rizla Suzuki MotoGP racers John Hopkins and Chris Vermeulen were sixth and eleventh quickest respectively after today’s free practice sessions, in preparation for Sunday’s Portuguese Grand Prix in Estoril. Hopkins (1’38.471, 49 laps) and Vermeulen (1’39.655, 52 laps) both worked hard to achieve the optimum settings for their respective Suzuki GSV-Rs at the demanding and technically difficult Estoril circuit. The two Rizla Suzuki men were separated by less than two-tenths of a second at the end of the day, as the top 17 riders were covered by only 0.969 seconds, with championship leader Casey Stoner on the Bridgestone-shod Ducati the fastest. Vermeulen showed a marked improvement throughout the day and in the second session took over eight-tenths of a second from his fastest time this morning. He believes there is more to come and is very comfortable with the way the bike and his tyres are working. Rizla Suzuki MotoGP has one more practice session on Saturday morning, followed by an hour of qualifying in the afternoon to determine grid positions for Sunday’s 28-lap race that gets underway at 15.00hrs local time (14.00hrs GMT). John Hopkins: “Going into this morning was all about working our way through our tyre allocation with Bridgestone and getting the best results for the cooler conditions. We changed some gearbox and suspension settings because the set-up for this track is not as easy as it has been at some of the circuits recently. But we’ve got our heads down and Stuart and the crew have done a good job in finding what we need. This afternoon we had a couple of minor mechanical glitches, but we got them all sorted out by the end and we’re confident about what we can do tomorrow. If we can continue from how we ended this afternoon’s session we will make some serious improvements tomorrow!” Chris Vermeulen: “This is only my second time here, but I do feel a lot more comfortable now that I know my way around a bit more. The track felt slippery to me, especially after the last few circuits we’ve been to. Bridgestone has done a fantastic job here compared to what we had last year and the tyres are working really well. I’m feeling very comfortable with the bike and our base set-up seems to be working well. Although I am only in 11th place, all the lap times are quite close so I’m sure I can make up some places tomorrow. We still have a few changes to make on Saturday and with it being so close it will be important to get a good grid position so I can be up towards the front right from the start on Sunday.” Stuart Shenton Chief Technician for John Hopkins: “We had to change a couple of little things today to get the set-up right for this circuit. We worked closely with Bridgestone to try and get the best pairing of tyres for the track and they have certainly made a huge step-up with the tyres from last year – I think we are pretty close to our tyre choice for Sunday’s race. This afternoon we had a small mechanical problem with John’s bike, but we identified it before the end of the session. He did finish the afternoon on his other bike and although it was set-up the same as his first bike John felt some small differences that we will be working on tomorrow. We need to tidy up some of the details and make sure we are ready for Sunday afternoon.” Tom O’Kane Chief Technician for Chris Vermeulen: “Chris worked through chassis and tyre settings all day as we needed to get in as much work today as we could, because some of the weather forecasts show rain for tomorrow. He improved on his times throughout the day and he knows there is still a bit more to come tomorrow. We will be working well into this evening to analyse all the data from today to make sure that we make the correct choices in time for the race.” More, from a press release issued by Dorna Communications: Fastest in both the morning and afternoon sessions on the opening day of practice for the bwin.com Grande Premio de Portugal, Casey Stoner made the ideal start to a weekend in which he has the chance of claiming the 2007 MotoGP World Championship. Stoner’s fastest lap of 1’37.950 onboard the Ducati Desmosedici GP7 made sure that the Australian’s Friday work came to a satisfactory conclusion, despite a light run-off and a few wobbles when pushing for even faster times. Second quickest this afternoon, Makoto Tamada clocked his best lap when using his Dunlop qualifying tyre, something that both he and team-mate Sylvain Guintoli have routinely practiced over the past few first day practice sessions. The Japanese rider was just under four hundredths of a second slower than Stoner, although the remainder of his laps fluctuated between the 1’39 and 1’43 markers. Just outside the 1’37 barrier, Valentino Rossi stepped up the pace to begin his quest to deny Stoner a title win, at least for this weekend. The Italian was once again using the pneumatic engine that was premiered at Misano, with positive results from both the new motor and his Michelin tyres. The only other rider who can play spoiler to Stoner was also amongst the frontrunners, with Dani Pedrosa putting in the fourth fastest time. The Spaniard will be looking to further improve his times tomorrow, with Stoner already nearly a second quicker than anyone outside the top three. A top six consisting of as many different teams was completed by Kawasaki’s Randy de Puniet and Suzuki’s John Hopkins, presenting a fairly even representation of the three tyre companies with three Bridgestone, two Michelin and one Dunlop rider respectively. Loris Capirossi, Nicky Hayden, Alex Barros and Sylvain Guintoli round off the fastest ten of the day, Barros having not had quite the fantastic start to his first visit to Estoril since a dominating 2005 victory. 250cc Jorge Lorenzo topped the 250cc timesheets on a day where the three victorious riders from the last round at Misano continued to set the standards. The Spaniard has never been on the podium in a 250cc race in Portugal, but showed no signs of discomfort with the Estoril circuit as he put in a 1’40.480 lap nearly a full second quicker than Roberto Locatelli’s pole record from 2006. The provisional first two rows would all have taken pole any other year, but the closest to Lorenzo on this occasion was his title rival Andrea Dovizioso, over four tenths of a second slower than the factory Aprilia rider. The KTM duo of Mika Kallio and Hiroshi Aoyama made up the front row featuring all three major factories, followed on the provisional second row by morning crasher Alvaro Bautista, title contender Alex de Angelis and the Spaniash duo of Julian Simon and Hector Barbera. 125cc Mattia Pasini was untouched as the fastest rider in the 125cc class today, following on from his Misano home victory in perfect style. The Italian took provisional pole in the afternoon qualifying session courtesy of a 1’45.115 lap of the Estoril circuit. The Polaris World rider had previously opened the day with the quickest lap in free practice. Pasini was over three tenths of a second faster than current World Championship leader Gabor Talmacsi, who is in somewhat better condition this week after shaking off the bout of flu that he experienced at Misano. He put himself on the provisional front row alongside team-mate Sergio Gadea and Lukas Pesek in a first four with times differing by nearly a second. The second row with one of two qualifying sessions completed will also be headed by a Polaris World rider, namely Pasini’s team-mate Joan Olive. The Spaniard’s countryman Pol Espargaro had a great start to his second appearance at Estoril to complete the top six, ahead of Tomoyoshi Koyama and Raffaele de Rosa. Title challenger Hector Faubel was amongst those to suffer crashes in the afternoon session, falling victim to a spectacular high side which thankfully left him unharmed. More, from a press release issued by Fiat Yamaha: ROSSI MAKES PROMISING START IN PORTUGAL, EDWARDS STRUGGLES IN THIRTEENTH Valentino Rossi was quick to put his recent disappointments behind him today, finding a good pace early on in Estoril and finishing the first day third in the combined standings. Rossi has an excellent record at the Portuguese track, having finished on the podium in all seven of his premier-class visits here, and he was quick to make the most of his experience to find a good base setting for his M1. Colin Edwards had a more difficult day and finished 13th in the combined standings, which were topped by Casey Stoner. A sunny and warm morning’s practice saw both Valentino and Colin lapping consistently in the top four places, finishing the session second and fourth respectively. This afternoon the good weather continued and Rossi put in some steady progress, improving slightly on his time and finishing only 0.170 behind Stoner, with second place filled by Yamaha Tech 3 rider Makoto Tamada. Edwards meanwhile ran into problems after his promising start and was unable to improve on his time from this morning, finishing 0.727 second down in 13th. Valentino Rossi Position: 3rd Time: 1’38.120 Laps: 55 “Today I am quite happy because we’ve made some improvements to the new engine and it’s going well for us, plus the new tyres that we found at the last test are also working quite well. We have a few small problems to fix, but I was able to ride a lot better today; I was quite fast from the start and we did some good work to find the right setting. Also this afternoon Tamada used a qualifying tyre so in reality we were second fastest on race tyres and quite close to Stoner; this is a good result. The bike is not so bad and it feels like we’ve made a good step forward. At the moment we need to think about the second part of the race, because this is where we expect more problems, but tomorrow the condition of the asphalt should be improved so hopefully this will also help our tyre performance.” Colin Edwards Position: 13th Time: 1’38.677 Laps: 50 “This morning things were quite good, definitely not perfect but we didn’t make a bad start. We had an idea about where we wanted to go this afternoon but unfortunately it didn’t work out and we found ourselves in a worse position. I was lacking in traction and felt like I couldn’t make the bike go where I wanted to go, which was pretty frustrating. We lost some time this afternoon but we’ll have a good look at all the data tonight and go back towards this morning’s setting tomorrow and see how it goes. I’m confident that we can find the right way so we’re in a position to fight for a good grid spot tomorrow.” Davide Brivio Fiat Yamaha Team Director “Today was positive for Valentino but more difficult for Colin. With Valentino we’re continuing to use the new engine, we have found some positive things with it and it’s working well. Plus the new tyres we have here are an improvement for us. We can see that Valentino is already able to ride quite well and his pace is close to the top so we will keep working in the same direction. With Colin we have some more work to do and we have to check very carefully tonight the information we gathered today in order to find a better set-up for him tomorrow. We know he can improve because this morning he was quite fast, so we need to go back in that direction tomorrow.” More, from a press release issued by Konica Minolta Honda: Positive Portuguese start for KONICA MINOLTA Honda and Nakano Shinya Nakano put his Honda RC212V into the top ten in this morning’s practice session for the Portuguese Grand Prix. In the afternoon session the 29-year-old Japanese rider made some overall improvements but had slipped down the order to 16th. He left it until the dying moments before finally moving up to 15th place overall. In the afternoon’s session he shaved around four-tenths of a second from his earlier time. With the Michelin tyres giving the former 250cc rider more feedback than ever before, he and the Team are confident that tomorrow they can make further improvements to the set-up of his Honda RC212V. Gianluca Montiron Team Manager KONICA MINOLTA Honda “Today I think the rhythm was so much better from Shinya and he was also very consistent. Obviously looking at the times we need to be faster, but it was very positive to see that he was able to make consistent lap times today in both sessions. It’s also good to see that here in Estoril our Michelin tyres seem to work quite well. Tomorrow we think that Shinya could make another move forward and could be in a good position overall after tomorrow afternoon’s qualifying session. I would like our target to be in the first two rows for the qualifying practice. So top eight is our goal!” Shinya Nakano Rider, KONICA MINOLTA Honda (52 laps 1′ 38.761″) “This has been a good Friday for us. This morning was very positive and so was the afternoon, although there wasn’t much of a difference in actual position compared to our other Fridays. The improvement is that I’m getting a much better feeling with the rear tyre. This is a big improvement and it helps me keep up my corner speed. I enjoy this track and I hope to make more improvements tomorrow. We already have a good feeling with race tyres and we’ve found two or three that are pretty good and could be potential race tyres for Sunday afternoon.” Giulio Bernardelle Technical Director, KONICA MINOLTA Honda “Today we can say we’ve had the best Friday so far this season not so much for final position this afternoon but the gap between 1st position and Shinya was just 0.8seconds, which is an improvement for us. This is principally due to the rear tyre that worked very well today. We have already been able to test all our tyres for the race and have a good idea, which we’ll use as a race tyre. Another positive point is that we’ve not finished our work on the bike yet, so I think we could find another one or two seconds tomorrow with some more changes. The conditions here were really hot more than 40-degrees track temperature so I think Michelin tyres will work well all weekend if conditions stay the same. Our only real problem is that our engine is not quite as strong as we would like down the long, main straight and this is a problem as at the end of the straight is the best place to overtake. We will see what improvements we can make for tomorrow.” More, from a press release issued by Gresini Racing Honda: MELANDRI AND ELIAS ON REDEMPTION TRAIL The opening day of the Grand Prix of Portugal proved to be tougher than expected for the Honda Gresini Team. Marco Melandri, who finished fourth in the last race at Misano, started out with a similar base setting and worked hard to adapt it to the characteristics of the Estoril circuit. Unfortunately this proved to be a difficult task and he was unable to ride to the best of his abilities, finishing tenth in the morning free practice and sixteenth in the afternoon. The Italian will be looking for major improvements tomorrow. Toni Elias’ return to Estoril brought back memories of his first ever victory in MotoGP here last season – a result he would love to be in a position to repeat come Sunday. TONI ELIAS (15th, 1’38″843): “Physically I feel better compered to Misano so today I tried to ride without any painkillers and I struggled a little. I’m at about 80% fitness now but I could feel the pain and tomorrow I’ll have to take something again. I like this circuit a lot and I’ve had some great times here. I’m sure we can get a top result here but we still have a lot of work to do. Today we weren’t able to get the best set-up for the bike’s characteristics and we’re struggling mainly under heavy braking. Tomorrow we’ll also keep working on the cycle part.” MARCO MELANDRI (16th, 1’38″919): “We started out with the base from Misano and some of the good solutions we found in the test on Monday. Unforunately we’ve come up against a chattering problem here that doesn’t allow me to ride as I like. We’re struggling in some of the hard braking that characterises this circuit. Tomorrow we’ll keep working. According to the weather forecasts the temperature could be up and that could be favourable for us because we went for a slightly harder tyre choice than we needed today. We know that this track is demanding and together with the team we’re working to find the best solution.” More, from a press release issued by Repsol: GOOD FIRST DAY OF TRAINING FOR THE REPSOL RIDERS IN ESTORIL Dani Pedrosa, 4th in MotoGp, got the best classification out of the Repsol riders; teammate Nicky Hayden was 8th After the first two sessions of free training, Dani Pedrosa got his 4th best time of the day, 251 milliseconds away from Australian Casey Stoner. His teammate in the Repsol Honda Team Nicky Hayden was 8th, half a second away from the Australian rider, a day in which the first seventeen riders to classify crossed the line during the same second. The Repsol riders improved their results as the day went on, and during the second free training session Dani Pedrosa reached second place. In the end, the repsol rider was overtaken by Makoto Tamada who, using qualification tyres, ended up registering the second best time of the day, and by Valentino Rossi, though he was happy with the improvements throughout the day. At the other end of the box, Nicky Hayden was also competitive on the demanding Portugese track, and was happy with the improvements throughout the day. At tomorrow’s definitive timed session the Repsol rider will for the third time try to get in the first row on the starting grid. 250cc riders Julián Simón and Shuhei Aoyama finished in 8th and 12th place, respectively. The Spaniard was satisfied with the performance of his motorbike, managing competitive times in both the free session and the timed session, though tomorrow he will be working with his team on adjustments that may allow him get a better position on the grid. Shuhei Aoyama had a few problems in the morning he managed 6th place, but in the afternoon he made some adjustments to his gearbox that didn’t give the result he had predicted. Tomorrow he will ride again with the adjustments that have shown to adapt to the particularities of this track, in order to get a better position. In 125cc things did not come out as expected, due to fall by Bradley Smith just a few seconds away from the end of the free training session, and engine problems in Esteve Rabat’s Honda halfway through the timed session have ended up conditioning the Repsol riders’ training session. The Englishman hit the ground when braking just before the slow chicane on the Estoril track, when he was having a last try at improving his position, preventing him from getting any further than 19th position. In the afternoon he improved adjustments, though tomorrow he must concentrate on solving the problems he has with the last part of the circuit, in which he loses too much time, and which ended up leaving him in 19th place. For his Repsol Honda Team 125 teammate Esteve Rabat the first day at Estoril was going quite well after finishing 7th in the morning, he managed to climb to 4th place in the afternoon session. However, engine problems with his Honda halted his progress, and ended up one place behind his teammate, he was having a last try at improving his time this prevented him from getting any further than 19th place. In the afternoon he improved adjustments, though tomorrow he will have to concentrate on solving the problems he has with the last part of the circuit, in which he loses too much time, and which ended up leaving him in 19th place. Quotes MotoGP Nicky Hayden — 1m 38.518 secs. 56 laps, 234 Km. “This was a pretty routine Friday for us. The position is obviously down a little bit from where we would like to be, and half a second is quite a lot, but time-wise it’s not as far back as we’ve been at some tracks on Friday. We made a good step from the morning to the afternoon session and I’ve got a few clear ideas on direction for the machine set-up, so that’s encouraging. I need to improve in T3 that’s my biggest problem area at the moment but overall we’ve made some good progress today. The track conditions were pretty perfect in both sessions and the surface wasn’t too dirty to start with this morning. That little flip-flop chicane is probably the trickiest part of this track so we need to make sure we’re getting through there a little better tomorrow.” Dani Pedrosa — 1m 38.201 secs. 53 laps, 221 Km. “I’m reasonably happy with how today has gone. The track was a little dirty this morning and so we took some time to work up to full pace. In the afternoon the condition of the surface improved quite a lot and this helped us to take nearly a second off the morning’s fastest lap. In the morning we had some trouble finding a tyre that worked very well but this afternoon we quickly found something that gave us more speed, which is good. We must continue to test the endurance of this one to check that it could be usable in the race. We will also work to improve the stability of the machine because the bumps at this circuit mean the bike always moves around quite a lot, so we’ll have to reach the best combination of grip of stability. Let’s hope we can move things on further tomorrow.” 250cc Julián Simón — 1.41’505 secs. 44 laps, 184 Km. “I like this track a lot, though with a 250cc it is a bit more complicated than with a 125cc. Today we did quite well, adjusting the motorbike so that I could feel comfortable on it. Logically, there are things that need improvement, but I think we got quite a fast time; Lorenzo cut down the record time so obviously the level today was high. The engine has performed well and I am satisfied, though I hope to improve my position. The team has done a good job and tomorrow I hope we can improve our position on the starting grid. Shuhei Aoyama — 1.42’139 secs. 44 laps, 184 Km. “This morning I had good feelings about the motorbike, the adjustments and the tyres. For the timed session in the afternoon we made a few adjustments to the motorbike, also to the gear ratio, though we did not manage any improvements with these changes. Now all we have to do is study the information we have and find the proper adjustments for tomorrow. If that is the case, I am sure that we will manage to improve our position tomorrow.” 125cc Bradley Smith — 1.46’772 secs, 37 laps, 154 Km. “This morning I was doing OK, but we had a few problems which needed solving to improve things, and with the fall I was left without the possibility of taking a step forward and riding faster in a last try to get a good time. In the afternoon we went on the track with used tyres; we were working on adjustments to the motorbike and on getting back confidence in it after this morning’s incident. I perform well on the three first parts of the track but lose a lot of time on the last part. We have to make a few changes to the motorbike and I have to watch the training sessions on TV to check if I am doing anything different to the rest of the riders on that part of the track.” Esteve Rabat — 1.46’862 secs. 36 laps, 150 Km. “In the morning things went quite well, we managed the 8th best time, but in the afternoon we were unable to maintain this position. The first part of the training session went well, but during the second half we had a problem with the motorbike with forced me to stop at boxes for a while. The adjustments to the suspension are good, but the engine did not perform too well. I hope that tomorrow things will improve for us. The World Championship is coming to an end and we are giving it our best to get good results, but for the moment we have not been lucky.” Official results MotoGP 1. Casey STONER (DUCATI) 1’37.950 2. Makoto TAMADA (YAMAHA) 1’37.989 3. Valentino ROSSI (YAMAHA) 1’38.557 4. Dani PEDROSA (REPSOL HONDA) 1’38.201 5. Randy DE PUNIET (KAWASAKI) 1’38.287 8. Nicky HAYDEN (REPSOL HONDA) 1’38.518 250cc 1. Jorge LORENZO (APRILIA) 1’40.480 2. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (HONDA) 1’40.824 3. Mika KALLIO (KTM) 1’40.893 4. Hiroshi AOYAMA (KTM) 1’41.063 5. Álvaro BAUTISTA (APRILIA) 1’41.338 8. Julián SIMÓN (REPSOL HONDA) 1’41.505 12. Shuhei AOYAMA (REPSOL HONDA) 1’42.139 125cc 1. Mattia PASINI (APRILIA) 1’45.115 2. Gabor TALMACSI (APRILIA) 1’45.466 3. Sergio GADEA (APRILIA) 1’45.497 4. Lukas PESEK (DERBI) 1’46.068 5. Joan OLIVÉ (APRILIA) 1’46.073 19. Bradley SMITH (REPSOL HONDA) 1’46.772 20. Esteve RABAT (REPSOL HONDA) 1’46.882