MotoGP 2008 - Round Three - Estoril (Portugal)

MotoGP 2008 - Round Three - Estoril (Portugal) - Day 1 - HRC Report

Repsol HRC

Sunshine, clouds, rain and wind took turns today throughout the first day of training sessions for the Portugese Grand Prix. Under these complicated weather conditions, this morning was particularly tough for the riders in the three categories. In the afternoon, the weather improved in spite of the persistent strong wind, and the three training sessions -timed in the case of the 125cc and 250cc categories, and free for the MotoGP riders-, were held on a dry track.

Dani Pedrosa had a particularly tough first free training session. The tarmac, at first completely wet and afterwards with some dry patches, did not exactly entice anyone to take any risks, and the winner of the last Spanish Grand Prix decided to play safe. This, and a few setup problems with his Honda RC212V 2008, led him to finish sixteenth at the end of the first session. Teammate Nicky Hayden, who finished fourth in the last Grand Prix, was sixth this morning. In the afternoon, and on a now completely dry track, though with strong wind, Pedrosa gradually climbed places until he took the lead by the end of the session, after a suerb struggle with Italian Valentino Rossi and American Colin Edwards for the best time. Nicky Hayden, increasingly consistent on his new Honda RC212V 2008, completed a fine day for the Repsol Honda Team scoring the fourth best time.

Dani Pedrosa >> 1’38.507 secs, 40 laps, 167 Km.
“We started today using the base setup we used at Jerez and we didn’t need to make too many changes. This morning’s session was quite complicated because it had been raining, so conditions were constantly changing as the track dried, then we had a minor technical issue with one of my bikes, so we had to stop before the end of the hour.

This afternoon we had a dry session which allowed us to start doing some tyre testing in preparation for the race, which is especially important considering the changeable weather during the weekend. After a few laps this afternoon I began to get into the rhythm of Estoril again.”

Nicky Hayden >> 1’38.688 secs, 47 laps, 197 Km.

“Everything went pretty well, it’s been quite a positive day, I think we had a pretty good start to things. Sure we’re gonna have to improve a little bit, but seems like in the wet and dry we got a bike working relatively well, so if we can sweeten up a few things tomorrow, hopefully we can really be up there come Sunday.

"More or less the bike was working okay without a lot of big changes, so we’re running a pretty similar setup to what I ran at Jerez, just a few little clickers here and there. Conditions were not easy, the morning was wet, then half and half and the afternoon was a little bit patchy and windy, so sure it was quite challenging, but the team’s done a good job and we’ve got a pretty decent setup, so we’ll see tomorrow.”