• Peg It on GarageMonkey
MOTOGP: ‘Tough’ Learning Day For Pedrosa
Casey Stoner wasn't overly excited about a day of mixed conditions at Silverstone, a fact that didn't help teammate Dani Pedrosa either.
Media Release  |  Posted June 15, 2012   Silverstone (GBR)
Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa (Photo: HRC)
PROGRAMMING NOTE: Round 6 of the MotoGP World Championship from Silverstone, England will air on SPEED on Sunday, June 17th at 2:30pm ET. Qualifying will air LIVE all season long on SPEED2. #SPEEDmoto

World Champion Casey Stoner leads the way on the first day of free practices at the British Grand Prix, with teammate Dani Pedrosa in ninth position.

The British weather played a big role in both sessions, and the MotoGP riders had their first taste of Silverstone's notoriously tricky conditions. After a wet session in the morning where Casey and Dani finished 4th and 7th respectively, the Repsol Honda Team were hoping for a dry afternoon session to begin set up work on the RC213V with the new front tire. However, a brief shower at the beginning of FP2 prevented the riders making the most of the 45 minute session.

Casey, the winner here last year, managed only 10 laps in dry conditions but it was enough time for him to set the fastest lap time with 2'04.791. Dani, who missed las year's race due to his collarbone injury, completed 14 laps and finished 0.8 tenths off his team mate.

CASEY STONER 1st 2'04.791

"We didn't learn very much from today. In the first session we tried understand the bike in the wet a little better, but it was gradually drying out throughout the session so it was difficult to take any real data. It was a similar situation this afternoon, we went out for a couple of laps and it started to rain which destroyed most of the session. We found the bike very hard to ride so we came in and made a change which took a lot of time and we didn't manage so many laps. It would be nice if we get some better weather again tomorrow and this wind makes things very tricky, but everyone is in the same position. The chatter is a little better, we made another small improvement but we'll need to check it tomorrow in some more consistent conditions."

DANI PEDROSA 9th 2'05.886

"It's been a tough day for me because it's a long time since I was here and it almost felt like a new track to me. I treated both practices as learning sessions, trying to learn the gears, the lines in the corners, the braking points and to find out the low grip areas. So, for me it was like a reminder in both wet and dry conditions and tonight I need to process all the information in my mind and get a little more used to the race track tomorrow and improve, in any condition. In the afternoon we used the new Bridgestone front tire, the softer compound due to the cold conditions here, but we did just a few laps. As I said in Barcelona we need to tune the set up of the bike a little to work better with this tire because for us it is too soft. Working with the weight distribution we might improve the performance."

media_release's avatar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Media Release

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR