2011 Motogp Aragon Spain Friday Practice Report Results 1

UPDATED: 2011 MotoGP Aragon Spain Friday practice report/results—Pedrosa leads

Pedrosa leads morning practice; afternoon practice canceled after power outage caused by blown transformer cannot be repaired in time

September 16, 2011

Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa took the top spot in the opening practice session at the Motorland Aragon circuit in Spain, jumping to the top of the order in the final 10 minutes with a lap time nearly half a second quicker than second-placed Jorge Lorenzo on the factory Yamaha, with Pedrosa’s teammate Casey Stoner a tick behind in third. None of the MotoGP riders were able to improve their times in the afternoon due to a power outage at the circuit caused by a blown transformer on the premises that eventually forced the second MotoGP and Moto2 practices to be canceled. The morning practices for both classes on Saturday will be extended by 30 minutes (making them 75 minutes long) to make up for the lost practice time.

Valentino Rossi made his debut practice with the aluminum-chassis GP11.1 Ducati, but progress was slow, and he ran off the track twice on his way to eighth place behind teammate Nicky Hayden in seventh and Pramac Ducati’s Randy De Puniet on standard carbon-framed Desmosedicis. Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Colin Edwards was ninth quickest, with Yamaha Factory Racing’s Ben Spies stuck on unusable soft compound tires in 11th spot.

“Basically in the morning we tried to get into a rhythm with the racetrack,” said Pedrosa. “Obviously it’s been a year since we’ve been here, but the bike wasn’t too bad. The bike was working more or less OK. The soft compound tires were way too soft, they won’t work for the race, so we have to consider the medium-soft compound for the race. It was disappointing not to be able to test in the afternoon today, the conditions were perfect.” Pedrosa wasn’t too happy with the Saturday FP3 practice being extended by 30 minutes. “Hopefully we can improve the bike tomorrow, because with the shorter session, you can analyze the data more carefully and get better ideas for the next session. But two sessions combined, you cannot make a big change to the bike if you need to.”

“Perfect,” was how Lorenzo described his morning practice session. “The session was perfect because there was no effort yet we were on the same level as everyone. But seriously, this morning we start in a good way, we finish four-tenths slower than Dani. It’s too early to come to any conclusions with regards to our race setup because the track is so dirty, we need to clean up the track to see who is the fastest. So tomorrow will be the real test. Everyone is disappointed not to be able to practice in the afternoon because we had so many things to try on the bike this afternoon. But anyway at least tomorrow we have half an hour more, so we have to try and take advantage of the practice.”

Stoner was another rider looking forward to the afternoon session when it was abruptly canceled. “The tires went off pretty quickly, the circuit seemed to be a little aggressive on them,” said Stoner about the Aragon course. “We went out on the soft tire at first and destroyed it in three or four laps. We tried to wait for the end of the session the track to clean up, but it never really got better. We got a little bit of data from this morning’s session, but we were really waiting for this afternoon. Not too happy with (the longer morning practice) because it’s going to be a hot day tomorrow. We’re going to have a lot more time riding all in one day, but we’ve got to get that done and get the best setup we can. At least the weather’s pretty consistent from morning to afternoon; of course there’s a bit of a difference, but I think the track will react quite similarly so we’ll just have to see how we go tomorrow.”

“It’s a pity for us,” said Rossi about the afternoon practice cancellation. “This morning was not so bad, just some laps to understand the bike. This afternoon we expected to understand the setting and some new parts a lot better, but unfortunately we have to wait until tomorrow morning. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if our potential is a little bit better. We have some problem with the rear grip and we are not so fast, but the first impression is not so bad. The feeling with the new aluminum part is quite good. But you know, it’s too early to say. If we had practice this afternoon maybe I would have had a better idea, but we have to wait until tomorrow. It’s very difficult, because one long practice is worse than two short practice because you have less time for understand and for work on the bike. So the time is just 15 minutes less but the way to work is different, so we need to work in a clever way.”

Hayden was delayed in the morning due to an issue with his number one bike that put him on his back foot from the start. “I had a problem with my first bike and had to come directly back to the pits,” said Hayden. “They sorted that out, and kind of started behind everybody. Once we got going though, it kinda came on OK, we actually used only one set of tires the whole session. In the end, was able to get into the 51s, the bike was working good but the track seemed really slippery, struggling a lot with the edge grip. Hopefully the track will clean up a little bit, it was a lot hotter here than last year, so it was definitely a bit slipperier and a bit bumpier. But it wasn’t a disaster first day, definitely the best first day we’ve had in a while.”

“That was a pretty easy day and to be honest I don't think I've ever been in and out of my leathers so many times in one day,” said Edwards about his ninth-quickest time in the morning. “This morning I felt pretty good and comfortable, which was immediately a good sign because I didn't have a very good feeling with this track last year. We struggled for rear grip last year and I rode a soft front tire in the race to try and find something that worked. But this morning I was happy right from the start on the hard front and rear and we know we can make the set-up better. We had a few ideas to help this afternoon but obviously there were some electricity issues and that's a pity for the fans that came out to watch us today. It was the right decision so we'll use the extra rest and come out strong tomorrow aiming to improve our pace.”

Despite running in 11th in the morning, Ben Spies surprisingly was upbeat about his morning practice session. “Actually, it was good, I was happy with it,” said Spies. “When everybody was all on the soft tires, I think we were around third or so. We just stayed on the same set of tires and moved onto the other bike to compare. Jorge went out on the harder tires, and immediately said it was much better, so it was something we were looking forward to trying this afternoon, we just didn’t get to. Everybody that was faster than us went to the hard tire, so we definitely know that’s the best way, and we’ve already picked which bike setup we’re going with, so it’s frustrating that we couldn’t get back out there this afternoon, but we’ll just wait until tomorrow morning.”

MotoGP Aragon Friday practice results:
1. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Honda 1:50.281
2. Jorge Lorenzo(SPA) Yamaha 1:50.730
3. Casey Stoner (AUS) Honda 1:50.806
4. Marco Simoncelli (ITA) Honda 1:50.893
5. Andrea Dovisioso (ITA) Honda 1:51.091
6. Randy De Puniet (FRA) Ducati 1:51.376
7. Nicky Hayden (USA) Ducati 1:51.418
8. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Ducati 1:51.676
9. Colin Edwards (USA) Yamaha 1:51.826
10. Hiroshi Aoyama (JPN) Honda 1:51.859
11. Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha 1:51.911
12. Hector Barbera (SPA) Ducati 1:52.016
13. Alvaro Bautista (SPA) Suzuki 1:52.224
14. Cal Crutchlow (GBR) Yamaha 1:52.580
15. Karel Abraham (CZE) Ducati 1:53.158
16. Toni Elias (SPA) Honda 1:53.440
17. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Ducati 1:53.842

UPDATED: 2011 MotoGP Aragon Spain Friday practice report/results—Pedrosa leads

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