MotoGP World Championship Jerez, Spain March 24, 2006 Friday Afternoon Practice Times: 1. Valentino ROSSI, Yamaha, 1:41.613 2. Loris CAPIROSSI, Ducati, 1:41.625 3. Daniel PEDROSA, Honda, 1:41.798 4. Sete GIBERNAU, Ducati, 1:41.798 5. Shinya NAKANO, Kawasaki, 1:41.939 6. Marco MELANDRI, Honda, 1:42.108 7. Colin EDWARDS, Yamaha, 1:42.266 8. Nicky HAYDEN, Honda, 1:42.276 9. Randy DE PUNIET, Kawasaki, 1:42.455 10. Toni ELIAS, Honda, 1:42.518 11. Kenny Lee ROBERTS, Roberts/Honda, 1:42.538 12. Casey STONER, Honda, 1:42.552 13. Carlos CHECA, Yamaha, 1:42.608 14. John HOPKINS, Suzuki, 1:42.727 15. Makoto TAMADA, Honda, 1:42.868 16. Chris VERMEULEN, Suzuki, 1:43.101 17. Jose Luis CARDOSO, Ducati, 1:43.712 18. Alex HOFMANN, Ducati, 1:43.781 19. James ELLISON, Yamaha, 1:45.239 More, from a press release issued by Ducati: DAY ONE 2006: DUCATI MARLBORO MEN UP FRONT Ducati Marlboro Team riders Loris Capirossi and Sete Gibernau enjoyed a positive first day of the 2006 MotoGP World Championship at Jerez today, completing the first two practice sessions for Sunday’s keenly awaited, season-opening Spanish GP a close second and equal third fastest. Conditions weren’t perfect, with this morning’s session held in cold and damp conditions and this afternoon’s in cool and windy conditions with dark clouds threatening. Capirossi was quickest in the damp and led much of the second session, ending up just 0.012s behind reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi. Gibernau was also impressively fast this afternoon, a mere 0.185s off ‘pole position’ and looking forward to further progress tomorrow, for which the weather forecast predicts sunny and warm conditions. LORIS CAPIROSSI, second fastest, 1m 41.625s “This afternoon was the first real practice session, although the track was still damp in places, so I couldn’t use my usual lines everywhere. The damp bothered me more than I expected. Furthermore, no rubber has been laid down, which means the track conditions are very different from the tests we did here two weeks ago. But overall I’m very, very happy with today. I’m only 12 hundredths behind the fastest guy which is nothing, and we were fast in the wet, so we are ready whatever the weather. The bike set-up is almost identical to what I used at the tests, the tyres are the same too, though we’ll test some new Bridgestones tomorrow. We know we can be faster than today, which is good. I’m okay, I’ll keep working and hope for some nice weather.” SETE GIBERNAU, equal third fastest, 1m 41.798s “Today was okay, no one could do any real work this morning, so this afternoon was like our first practice session. Even then conditions weren’t perfect, it seemed like there were still a few damp patches out there, so we’re not going quite as fast as we were at the tests. For me, we need to make the bike easier, more natural. I’m still fighting with it more than I’d like, but the team has got some ideas to work on that. I’m not really thinking too much about lap times at the moment. I know we can be fast but we need to be constantly fast, so we’re working more towards a good race pace. Bridgestone have some new tyres here, so we’ve still got more stuff to try tomorrow.” Temperatures: Ambient: 23 degrees. Track: 33 degrees More, from a press release issued by Kawasaki Racing Team: TOP TEN FOR NAKANO AND DE PUNIET AT JEREZ The 2006 season opened at Jerez today, with Kawasaki’s Shinya Nakano and Randy de Puniet both putting in impressive performances during this afternoon’s one-hour free practice session, to finish in fifth and ninth place respectively. Overnight rain left the 4.423 km Jerez circuit damp and slippery for this morning’s opening free practice session, during which both Kawasaki riders opted to remain in the pit box, venturing out only at the end of the session but completing less than 10 laps between them. An improvement in the weather for afternoon free practice was good news for the thousands of Spanish race fans lining the circuit, but conditions on track remained unpredictable, as damp patches in the faster sections almost caught out a number of riders early in the session Both Kawasaki riders complained of losing the rear through the fast series of turns at the back of the circuit, with de Puniet out of the seat on a number of occasions as the rear tyre on his Ninja ZX-RR span up after losing traction on the slippery track surface. Nakano and de Puniet took advantage of improving grip levels towards the end of the session to test a new rear tyre from Bridgestone, constructed using a revised drive compound to increase traction out of the turns while remaining more consistent over race distance. And while conditions weren’t ideal for evaluating subtle differences in tyre construction, both Nakano and de Puniet set their fastest times on the new tyre with just minutes of the session remaining. While declaring themselves happy with today’s performance both Kawasaki riders remain confident that, as conditions tomorrow are forecast to match those during the recent IRTA test at Jerez, there are significant improvements still to come. Shinya Nakano: 5th – 1’41.939 “This morning was a bit of a wash out. I waited right to the end before going out to bed in a new engine, but the track was just too slippery for the cut slick I’d opted for in the rear of the bike. This afternoon the conditions were better, but parts of the track were still very slippery right to the end of the session. We tested a new rear tyre from Bridgestone right at the end, with positive results, but we’ll need to confirm the results tomorrow when conditions are due to improve. It took me a little time this afternoon to get used to having so many bikes around me on track; a one-hour practice session is very different to the day long tests we’ve been doing over the winter when you mostly have the track to yourself! I’m happy to finish in the top five today, and tomorrow we just need to find those final tenths of a second from me and the bike to put us in the best position for qualifying.” Randy de Puniet: 9th – 1’42.455 “There was nothing to learn this morning on track, as conditions weren’t dry enough for slicks nor damp enough for full wets. It was a bit of an anti-climax after waiting so long to make my MotoGP debut! At the start of the afternoon session I felt a little bit nervous; I don’t know why, because I felt okay this morning, but it quickly passed. Conditions were difficult this afternoon, and there were a couple of places on the fast sections of the track where the rear tried to come round on me when on a fast lap, but I don’t think this will be a problem if the weather improves for tomorrow as forecast. Overall I’m happy to finish inside the top ten today. Tomorrow we need to continue working the same way, so that we’re ready for my first MotoGP qualifying session in the afternoon.” More, from a press release issued by Camel Yamaha: ROSSI MAKES PERFECT START AT JEREZ Camel Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi kicked off his MotoGP World Championship defence in fine style today, setting the fastest lap time in the first free practice sessions for the opening round of the 2006 season at Jerez. After light rain showers hit the track this morning, when Rossi decided not to ride and his team-mate Colin Edwards put in just two laps, both riders were able to work without interruption in the afternoon as they aimed to iron out set-up difficulties encountered in recent pre-season tests at this circuit. Whilst Rossi was able to overcome the majority of his problems, immediately finding the right direction to work with the team’s engineers and technicians, Edwards suffered a minor setback today but he is confident that he can recover lost ground in tomorrow morning’s final free practice before the crucial afternoon qualifying session. The American clocked the seventh fastest time today as Loris Capirossi (Ducati) produced the strongest challenge to Rossi’s dominance, lapping 0.012 seconds slower than his Italian compatriot. VALENTINO ROSSI (1’41.613, 24 laps) “We haven’t fixed everything just yet but the Yamaha engineers came up with a few ideas to solve the vibrations we suffered during the test and they all worked. So far we have come up with a setting that allows me to ride in a better way to control the bike and, even though we still have some small vibrations, it is giving us less problems. This is the perfect way to start the season and I am really happy with the way the team have worked. This afternoon the track conditions were still not perfect so the times weren’t so fast, but I think tomorrow it will be better. Tomorrow we have to keep working hard to come up with some more solutions and I am sure we will be in good shape for the race. There is already a good atmosphere and I can’t wait until Sunday!” COLIN EDWARDS (1’42.266, 28 laps) “To be honest things didn’t go as we would have wished today. After losing an hour this morning because of the weather we missed out on another 45 minutes in the afternoon. I felt something was wrong but it took a long time for us to work it out. Basically there was too much pressure in the tyre and once we realised that we were able to start working properly unfortunately it was a bit too late to be reflected in the lap times. Looking across the garage we can see that the engineers have got some really good data that will definitely help us tomorrow to refine the set-up and sort out some of the problems we had in the test. It will be two important hours but I have full confidence in the job the team is doing.” DAVIDE BRIVIO CAMEL YAMAHA TEAM DIRECTOR “It looks like we are making improvements and moving in the right direction, which is very encouraging at this early stage of the weekend. We lost this morning’s session to the weather but I have to say that the engineers and the technicians made the most of the available time to make the first adjustments to the bikes. Both riders have done a different job today, and our team has great cooperation so now we can put all this information together and find the best way forward for both riders tomorrow morning. Hopefully the bad weather is now out of the way for the rest of the weekend.” More, from a press release issued by Team Suzuki: Rizla Suzuki MotoGP held up by the weather at Jerez Rizla Suzuki MotoGP was delayed in its efforts to get the best from the first day of practice for the Gran Premio betandwin.com De Espana at Jerez in Spain, as heavy overnight rain all but washed out the first session. John Hopkins and Chris Vermeulen were both looking to follow on from where they left off at the previous test but were hampered in their efforts to find the best set-up for their Rizla Suzuki GSV-Rs. The early morning downpour left the track very wet and Hopkins and Vermeulen only completed four and nine laps respectively. The afternoon session was held in cloudy but dry conditions, with some damp patches. Hopkins tried some new settings to find the right direction for Sunday’s race and clocked a fastest time of 1’42.727 during his 27 laps to give him the 14th quickest time overall. Team-mate Vermeulen was only 0.374 seconds behind Hopkins as the rookie Australian recorded a best time of 1’43.101 from his 24 laps. He too tried many different set-ups on his Rizla Suzuki GSV-R and tested one of Bridgestone’s possible new race tyre options brought to Jerez. World Champion Valentino Rossi on a Yamaha set today’s fastest time. Rizla Suzuki MotoGP will have a further one hour practice session tomorrow morning, which will be followed by an hour of qualifying in the afternoon. Sunday’s race will take place at 14.00hrs CET. John Hopkins: “I wouldn’t say this has been the best of days. We didn’t get anything done this morning because it was horrible out on track. This afternoon we were playing around with settings because we just couldn’t find the best set-up when we were here for the test. We will now re-look at what we had at the test and work from there because we know we can be a lot quicker than we were today. We’ve just got to keep chipping away and come back tomorrow as strong as we can.” Chris Vermeulen: “It wasn’t too bad today, obviously we would like to be further up the time-sheets but we used this afternoon to try out a lot of chassis stuff on the Rizla Suzuki – so it wasn’t really all about times. We also tried a new Bridgestone tyre and some different electronics settings. The track was still a little patchy this afternoon so it wasn’t as quick for me as it had been at the test. Hopefully tomorrow we can work on a few more things and make it all a little better.” Paul Denning Team Manager: “After the test we knew that we still had a lot of work to do to be more competitive at this track and the weather today has really played against us. Losing this morning’s session to rain meant that we had a lot to cram into this afternoon and because of that we didn’t really get the results we wanted from either rider. Even though we needed to move forward from the test, today has felt like a backward step if anything! We’ve still got a lot of work to do tomorrow to get ourselves in a better position for the Grand Prix on Sunday.” More, from a press release issued by Dorna Communications: With the 2006 season’s curtain-raising Gran Premio betandwin.com de España just two days away, the MotoGP riders were out on the track today for two sessions of free practice. The grandstands already had a healthy turnout of motorbike aficionados despite some early rainfall, with the weekend figure expected to reach over 200,000. The weather cleared up for the gathered throng in time for the exciting action of the afternoon’s free practice. World Champion Valentino Rossi has won the last five season-opening Grands Prix, and showed his intention to make it six with the fastest time in today’s free practice sessions at the Jerez Circuit. The Italian went round in a time of 1’41.613, topping the timesheets just over a hundredth of a second ahead of Loris Capirossi. The Ducati rider has had a strong series of test showings at the Andalusian track, form he will be hoping to continue through the final sessions and into the race. The Spanish crowd had much to cheer about on this the first day of practice in Jerez. With an all-Italian top two, home riders Dani Pedrosa and Sete Gibernau completed the top four with inseparable times. The young rookie and the experienced veteran are both making new starts, Pedrosa of course debuting in the category for Honda and Gibernau riding a Ducati for the first time. The final rider to go round in under 1’42, Shinya Nakano highlighted the dramatic improvement of the Kawasaki by coming in fifth. The Japanese rider had already had an impressive final test at the Jerez Circuit nearly two weeks ago, one which seems to suit the Bridgestone tyres and brand new engine of his 2006 bike. With the cloudy skies which had put a dampener on the morning’s free practice not bringing rain to the circuit, the uninterrupted second session was a chance for the riders to learn the finer points of the track in the dry. Marco Melandri and Colin Edwards were two of the riders to put in the most laps, their best times just over half a second off Rossi’s pace. With his teammate in the Honda Factory team in the top three, Nicky Hayden trailed him by four tenths at the end of today’s qualifying. The top ten was completed by two rookies in the MotoGP premier class, Kawasaki’s Randy de Puniet and Honda’s Toni Elias, who only put in eleven laps of the track after missing the morning practice. 250cc In the 250cc category, Aprilia team-mates Hector Barbera and Jorge Lorenzo headed the standings in the first of two qualifying sessions, the only riders to go round in under 1’45. With fast times in tests at the circuit, the two Spaniards will be hot favourites for their home race. Shuhei Aoyama, Alex de Angelis and Andrea Dovizioso completed the top five. Kiefer Racing’s two riders Dirk Heidolf and Anthony West took sixth and seventh respectively, adding to the extensive Aprilia presence. Japanese riders Hiroshi Aoyama and Yuki Takahashi completed the top ten alongside Italian Alex Baldolini. 125cc Czech rider Lukas Pesek topped the leaderboard in the 125cc category’s first qualifying session of the season, with a fastest lap of 1’47.734 in the opening GP betandwin.com de España session. The Derbi Racing man took provisional pole ahead of Alvaro Bautista and the morning’s fastest rider Julian Simon. Tomoyoshi Koyama completes the potential front row. Mattia Pasini, fastest at the final test of the preseason at the Andalusian track, headed a host of title contenders. Mika Kallio, Gabor Talmacsi, Sergio Gadea and Aleix Espargaro were all in the top ten, with reigning World Champion Thomas Luthi completing the top ten. 1st, Valentino Rossi, 1’41.613: “We haven’t fixed everything just yet but the Yamaha engineers came up with a few ideas to solve the vibrations we suffered during the test and they all worked. This is the perfect way to start the season and I am really happy with the way the team have worked. Tomorrow we have to keep working hard to come up with some more solutions and I am sure we will be in good shape for the race. There is already a good atmosphere and I can’t wait until Sunday!” 2nd, Loris Capirossi, 1’41.625: “This afternoon was the first real practice session, although the track was still damp in places, so I couldn’t use my usual lines everywhere. The damp bothered me more than I expected. Furthermore, no rubber has been laid down, which means the track conditions are very different from the tests we did here two weeks ago. But overall I’m very, very happy with today. I’m only 12 hundredths behind the fastest guy which is nothing, and we were fast in the wet, so we are ready whatever the weather.” 3rd, Dani Pedrosa, 1’41.798: “It was a real shame about the weather this morning, which meant we couldn’t do what we wanted. This afternoon we managed to put in some good work though, and to be honest I didn’t expect to be so high up the timesheets at this stage. There’s obviously lots of pressure on me from the fans and the media, but I’m just concentrating on doing my job.” 1st (250cc), Hector Barbera, 1’44.561: “I think my provisional pole position was a surprise for nearly everyone, except for me. I believe in my chances and think I am capable of being up at the front even though my results last year left me in the second tier of riders. If I do that, people will have to start taking notice of me, although it’s always easier to ride without pressure rather than with the obligation of having to win like the others. Technically we are at a high level, we had two sessions without any problems and ended up in first. Tomorrow I hope to stay in pole and prepare for the race without any difficulties.” 1st (125cc), Lukas Pesek, 1’47.734: “I am very happy with this current position, but I’m well aware that it is only provisional and that nothing can be celebrated right now. The results of the previous tests have given me a lot of confidence and useful information, the bike and team are at a good level and I can concentrate on getting the best out of my riding.” More, from a press release issued by Fortuna Honda: FORTUNA HONDA RIDERS READY FOR SEASON OPENER First day of practice The long wait is over. The first day of practice for the opening round of the MotoGP World Championship took place today at Jerez de la Frontera. After the long winter of testing the riders finally entered serious action today as they make their final preparations for the first race of the season, which takes place on Sunday. The rain that was present throughout the morning did not leave the track in ideal conditions and prevented the teams from completing the work they had planned in the opening session. However, warm sunshine covered the track in the afternoon and allowed normal proceedings to resume. In general it was a good start for the FORTUNA HONDA riders, who improved on the best times they set at this circuit only two weeks ago. MARCO MELANDRI (1’42″108, 6th fastest): “We couldn’t make the most of the morning session because of the weather but we did have some reference data thanks to the recent tests here a couple of weeks ago. I am satisfied because we have taken a major step forward today. We have noticed an improvement and the Michelin tyres have worked perfectly. The objective was to continue on the same line of work to prepare the first race of the 2006 season. We have been consistent and I think we can improve even more tomorrow.” TONI ELIAS (1’42″518, 10th fastest): “The weather hasn’t helped us too much and we preferred not to go out onto the track during the morning session. In the afternoon we went out with the same set-up configuration that we used during the IRTA tests. I still have a wide margin for improvement and I have to pick up my pace. I’m confidence and tomorrow we will be working closely with the Michelin guys.”