MotoGP 2008 - Round Ten - Sachsenring (Germany)

MotoGP 2008 - Round Ten - Sachsenring (Germany) - Day 1 - HRC Report

Repsol HRC

Today, the first day of practice at the German Sachsenring circuit, brought diverging results for the Repsol riders. In spite of a good start for Dani Pedrosa on the first day of free practice for the German GP, a slight fall prevented the Repsol Honda Team rider from setting one of the the fastest times in the top category. In the morning, Pedrosa set the fourth best time in the first free session, just 0.4 seconds behind Stoner, who was the fastest.

Pedrosa had his fall in the afternoon on corner number 12, a left-hander - the second to last before the home straight - just 10 minutes after the start of the second free practice session. Ten minutes later he was out on the track with his second motorbike, but with a different set up, and this is what prevented him from improving his best time from the morning, and so the Repsol Honda Team rider finished seventh in the second session and an average of fifth after the two free sessions.

His Repsol Honda teammate, the American Nicky Hayden, continued with his work of completing the new Honda HRC engine with pneumatic valves. The American set the eighth best time in the morning and finished in the same position in the afternoon, improving his times in the second free practice session by a little over 3 tenths of a second.

Dani Pedrosa >> 1’22.759 secs, 56 laps, 206 Km.
“This morning we started out working on set-up and tyre choice, as usual. I had a good feeling and the tyres were working well with a track temperature of 29 degrees. In the afternoon I crashed at Turn 12, maybe because I braked too late, but the crash was without any real consequence. After that I used my second bike but I couldn’t find the same feeling, so I couldn’t go as fast as I wanted. Tomorrow we will try to improve our settings and do some longer runs on tyres. We have to see how hot it will be, because the track temperature can get very hot here, this afternoon it was already more than 40 degrees.”

Nicky Hayden >> 1’22.975 secs, 60 laps, 220 Km.
“Today was pretty average, really. I certainly hoped to be nearer the top in both sessions. We made some little improvements this afternoon, got the bike to steer a bit better, and dropped the lap time a bit which helped, but we’re still down in eighth. It’s a short little lap here, so a couple of tenths is a lot. We’ve got a couple of ideas to improve tomorrow, but it’s not easy to figure out how we’re going to get down to where we need to be. We need to find a big chunk from somewhere. In the past I’ve had some good results here but it’s a track where I always struggle a bit on the first day and then pull it together, so let’s see if we can’t do the same this year. Lap time-wise we’re already quite a bit quicker than last year which we have been everywhere, in fact I’ve already gone faster than I qualified last year.”

Jir Scot

The first day of practice for the German Grand Prix ended with a positive result for Andrea Dovizioso who is comfortably in the top ten. Despite a fast, but innocuous crash early in the second session at the penultimate corner – a scene of many crashes today – JiR Team Scot has collected important data, which will be used to further improve the situation tomorrow. After completing the fifth best time of the morning, the increase in temperature from the morning to the afternoon from 30 to 40 degrees meant that it was not possible to improve, but Andrea Dovizioso and the team are confident of moving forward tomorrow.

Cirano Mularoni - Team Manager JiR Team Scot
“With regard to practice today the result is positive but we have to improve. We are in a very positive position to do better and I expect an improvement in practice tomorrow. We did slip down the order in the afternoon, but looking at the standings there’s a large group of riders separated by only a little bit of time, so even a small difference will vary your position in the group. It will also be important that the weather conditions remain stable for tomorrow in order to build on what has been done today.”

Andrea Dovizioso - Pilot JiR Team Scot MotoGP
“The first day of tests at Sachsenring ended positively, because this morning we went well, and I was fifth, while in the afternoon we have been slowed by the crash and the weather conditions. The fall was unexpected, because I just lost the front with no real warning, but thankfully the crash had no physical consequences for me. As regards the time, however, the track temperature had risen by about ten degrees making it difficult to improve the provisional lap time. Despite the crash, I was still satisfied thanks to the work we had done in the morning. After the crash, inevitably we lost precious minutes and it took time to return to the feeling with the bike we had in the morning, but there were no problems and we were able to make comparisons and suspension settings that have given us some clear indications of the right direction to head in. My feelings are the same on the track though, it’s too narrow and slow!”

Gianni Berti - Technical Coordinator JiR Team Scot
“Today was a day of intense work that we used to perform all the routine work we generally complete on the first day, but also to make some comparisons on the circuit. This is important as at the Sachsenring there are constant changes of elevation. Overall we completed almost the entire day’s programme that we had set ourselves and the crash has only partly slowed this work. Tomorrow we will have to finalise the choice of tyres for the race.”