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2010 MotoGP Championship - Round One - Qatar |
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2010 MotoGP Championship - Round One - Qatar |
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2010 MotoGP Championship - Round One - Qatar - Day One Ducati Marlboro rider, Casey Stoner, stamped his authority on the opening free practice session tonight in Qatar, finishing at the top of the timesheet and more than 0.5s ahead of his nearest rival, Fiat Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo. Despite playing down his chances of a fourth consecutive victory during yesterday's pre-event press conference, Stoner took charge from early in the session, with his fastest time of 1'55.500 coming on the 9th of the 17 laps completed during the hour-long practice. The winner of the last three MotoGP races in Qatar, all under floodlights, Stoner showed his rivals today that he has every intention of claiming his fourth consecutive victory in Sunday's 22-lap race. Jorge Lorenzo pipped his Fiat Yamaha teammate, and reigning World Champion, Valentino Rossi by just 0.002s to take second place on the timesheet with his final flying lap, but then crashed uninjured just as the session came to a close. Andrea Dovizioso overcame the problems he has had with the Repsol Honda during pre-season testing, to finish the session in fourth place, just 0.095 ahead of Ducati Marlboro's Nicky Hayden. Ben Spies, making his debut as a full-time MotoGP rider here in Qatar, was an impressive sixth fastest aboard the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 bike, finishing the session just 0.025s behind his fellow countryman and six places ahead of his more experienced teammate, Colin Edwards. Alvaro Bautista was another rider who impressed on his MotoGP debut, as he took the Rizla Suzuki to seventh place on the timesheet, well ahead of his teammate, Loris Capirossi, who crashed uninjured early on in the session and eventually finished in 13th position. Randy de Puniet, Mika Kallio and another MotoGP first timer, Hector Barbera on the Paginas Amarillas Aspar Ducati, rounded out the top ten. |
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Yamaha Report Five months on from the final race of last season the Fiat Yamaha pair of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi were back in action in Qatar tonight for the opening free practice of 2010, finishing the session second and third behind Casey Stoner. Last season's in-house rivalry looks set to continue with the Spaniard having the edge over the Italian tonight by just 0.002 seconds, the former emerging unscathed after touching a white line and sliding off his M1 near the end of the session. Lorenzo, last season's runner-up, was on great form for most of the hour despite not being back to full fitness after his recent hand injury. The 22-year-old was looking comfortable and confident on his bike and was able to ride without any additional hand protection inside his glove. After sitting third in the times for most of the session a late improvement saw him better his team-mate's time by just two thousandths of a second, before making a mistake at turn 14 the next time around and going down into the gravel trap. He was luckily unhurt and is confident that he can make further improvements tomorrow. Reigning World Champion Rossi meanwhile was a little disappointed with his opening performance and admitted he was expecting to be faster after his strong showing here in testing. The 31-year-old found he was lacking grip on the dusty track and he and his team will be looking to improve their setting tomorrow in order to get the most out of the Bridgestone tyres and close the gap to Stoner. Jorge Lorenzo - Position: 2ndTime: 1'56.026Laps: 20 "I'm quite happy about tonight and about my hand; I tried riding for the first time without the extra hand protection and I was okay. I felt good on the bike and my thumb didn't really hurt, it was a lot better than at the test. We still have a few things on the bike that we need to work on but we have made a good start. It was a pity to crash, I was pushing hard at the time and I just made a small mistake, touching the white line; these things happen and luckily I didn't hurt myself. Tomorrow we'll continue our work and try to improve more." Valentino Rossi - Position: 3rdTime: 1'56.028Laps: 23 "Honestly I expected to be faster today - the lap time is not bad but it could be better. The conditions are much better than during the test, it's warmer and a lot less humid so I'm happy about that, but we don't have enough grip and I was sliding quite a lot so we need to try to find a way to improve this. Stoner is always very fast here and I hope we can close the gap to him by making some small changes to our suspension. If we can stop the bike sliding then we will be a lot faster." Wilco Zeelenberg - Team Manager "Apart from the crash we're very satisfied with this first official session of the year. Jorge was on a quick lap when he touched the white line and went down, this is just one of those things that happens to every rider now and again and luckily he wasn't hurt. It was encouraging to see Jorge's level after missing some testing and we can see that he is already competitive. The bike is good and the speed is there; there are just a few small details to work on but we've made a good start." Davide Brivio - Team Manager "Tonight we checked the different Bridgestone tyres and also made some small adjustments to the balance of the bike, but we still need to improve our setting. At the moment we're not getting the full potential of our tyres and this is slowing us down. We are not too far off but we can be better so we'll work hard tomorrow to make a step forward." Spies and Edwards kick off 2010 MotoGP challenge in Qatar Ben Spies kicked off his first full MotoGP campaign in Qatar tonight with a promising ride to sixth position on his debut for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team. Making only his second appearance under the spectacular Losail International Circuit floodlights after a brilliant fourth place in last month's night test, the Texan started strongly and was immediately able to post competitive lap times. Quickly into a fast and consistent rhythm in the early stages of the eagerly anticipated first session of the season, Spies was challenging in the top three behind Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi. Spies, who won both World Superbike races in Qatar last year, spent the majority of the session evaluating the harder compound Bridgestone rear tyre in readiness for Sunday night's 22-lap race. It was a tactic that paid off handsomely for the 25-year-old, who posted his best lap of 1.56.818 on his 21st lap, just one lap shy of full race distance. Fellow Texan Colin Edwards started his third season in the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad by clocking the 12th fastest time in hot conditions as air temperatures hit 26 degrees. A best lap of 1.57.167 was less than 0.5s off the fourth best time set by Andrea Dovizioso. Edwards was able to run in the top six for part of the session as he worked tirelessly with his crew to improve front-end feel on his Yamaha YZR-M1 machine. Edwards, who finished fourth in the Qatar MotoGP race a year ago, is confident weight distribution changes planned for tomorrow's practice and qualifying will bolster his hopes of a successful start to the season. Ben Spies - Position: 6th Time: 1'56.818Laps: 22 I didn't want anything crazy to go on with it being the first race. I wanted to be in the top ten for the first session of the year because the last time I rode the bike I fell, so I just wanted to clear my head and get off to a good start. To be in the top ten in the first session and right in sixth, I'm happy with that. We never really threw a lap time in and the session was pretty smooth. We went out on the hard tyres and it was good. We did our quickest lap on the 21st lap, which is close to a full race. Every time we went out the times were getting faster. Besides the top three guys, I think we've got pretty good speed, which is really important. We need to get some time on the softer tyre so when qualifying comes we can use it to its full potential. I still think we've got a second at least with fresh hard tyres on the bike, so I'm pretty happy about that." Colin Edwards - Position: 12thTime: 1'57.167 Laps: 22 "I left the test last month in a bit of a grey area and wondering about a couple of things because the bike has a different geometry this year and it's changed the feel a bit. I've been trying to adapt to it but I need to make some changes and bring the set-up closer to what I had last year. Right now I'm not feeling all that comfortable. I feel like I'm chasing the bike on the front and it doesn't turn until I open the throttle. With this bike you can't ride it without momentum. That's one of its strong points and right now I can't take advantage of that. We'll take some weight off the front for tomorrow night and in my opinion that will help. I think 12th is a bit of a false position because I'm sure with some changes I'v e got another second in me. Right now there's too many corners where I can't carry the momentum I want. But I'm confident we can improve a lot." -- Ducati Report The 2010 MotoGP World Championship finally stepped into the spotlight tonight as the first free practice session for the Grand Prix of Qatar took place under the night sky of Losail. Casey Stoner set the pace lapping some 0.526 seconds ahead of his closest rival in a positive opening to the weekend. The Australian set his best effort on his ninth lap of seventeen, having switched bikes midway through the session due to a small technical glitch when the water hose split on his number 1 bike. However, he set a similar pace on his second machine, raising hopes of further improvement when the data is overlapped tomorrow. Nicky Hayden made an encouraging start to his second season with Ducati, lapping fifth fastest. The American made swift improvements during the session to move up the time sheets. CASEY STONER (Ducati Marlboro Team) 1st (1’55.500) "Today felt really good – we had a similar rhythm to the test and I didn’t feel to be pushing too hard. I had a really good feeling from the start and actually when we changed the setting I went faster but didn’t feel as good, so we need to work on that. This is obviously a good circuit for me but we’re taking things steadily. The target for this weekend is to take away some solid points and make a good start to the season. It is early days and we’re not getting carried away. We set some good lap times today but everybody else will improve so we have to work hard tomorrow and make sure we stay on the pace right through until Sunday night." NICKY HAYDEN – (Ducati Marlboro Team) 5th (1’56.793) “We took a little while getting going today. We had just a little bit of confusion around the tyre choice at the start - I just couldn’t get a feeling for the bike for the first twenty minutes when we were on the softer tyre but when we switched to a hard tyre things picked up straight away and I was able to improve the lap times. I went about as fast as I did at the test consistently so that’s encouraging. This is a good start to the season even if we have plenty of room for improvement.” -- Repsol Honda The first hour of free practice for the Grand Prix of Qatar took place at the Losail Circuit this evening as the 2010 MotoGP roared into life. After making useful progress through session, Repsol Honda riders Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa lay in 4th and 11th places when the chequered flag waved at 11.30pm to bring the opening session of the year to a close. Dovizioso, who begins his second season with the factory Honda squad, underlined the ever-improving potential he showed through the winter test period by finishing in the top four tonight. The Italian and his crew started working from the base machine settings they established at the test held at this circuit three weeks ago and, in lower grip conditions, he was able to set a laptime of 1m 56.698s, which was 1.198s behind today’s fastest time set by Casey Stoner. Dovizioso's Honda RC212V was quickest through the Losail speed trap tonight with a fastest recorded speed of 319.1kmh (198. 2mph), and the 24-year-old is confident that he can advance his set-up tomorrow and move closer to the front riders in terms of lap time too. His team-mate Dani Pedrosa finished tonight’s session a fraction over four tenths of a second behind Dovizioso and also promised a move closer to the front in tomorrow’s two sessions. The Spanish rider had some positive results from a slightly modified chassis he was using and, with more track time, is cautiously confident there is more to come through the weekend. Another hour of practice ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying session will be followed by Sunday’s floodlit race, which is set to start at 23:00hrs. ANDREA DOVIZIOSO – 4th – 1m 56.698 “I’m confident after this first session, and I think we can build on this. We started with the same base set-up from the test here, but actually the track conditions were different and there was less grip tonight. We also discovered some small issues that didn’t allow us to use all the potential of the bike so I’m sure we can get quicker. We tried a slightly modified swingarm tonight and we felt a small improvement with it, so we’ll use that tomorrow as well. Stoner’s lap time is very fast and our gap to the front is still big but anyway we need to analyse what we’ve learned from this session and use it to move further forward in tomorrow’s sessions. Our target for tomorrow is to lap in the low 1m 56s.” DANI PEDROSA – 11th – 1m 57.133 “Well, we made some progress in this session and there are some modifications that we tried that improved the feeling a little bit. We should be able to continue with that through the weekend, though today we had a couple of issues with the machine which meant we lost some testing time and didn’t make as much progress as we could have done. My finishing position isn’t great today but the team is pushing very hard and we’ll continue that way. We remain optimistic for the two practice sessions tomorrow. Our lap times today were about the same as the test here three weeks ago so we’ll be looking to make a big improvement tomorrow and confirm the direction we’re going in.” TOSHIYUKI YAMAJI - REPSOL HONDA TEAM MANAGER “So the 2010 season has begun and the Repsol Honda Team is glad to be back on track at Qatar for the first race of the year. We have started the season with a useful first practice session here and we can move forward from this base through the weekend. Andrea did a good job again today and, with a few modifications to the settings of his machine, he can get closer still to the front - as he was here during testing. Dani also made some progress today and if we can iron out a few problems for him, we’re sure there’s more to come in tomorrow’s two sessions. The Team is working very hard and that’s how it will continue.” -- Suzuki Report The first hour of free practice for the Grand Prix of Qatar took place at the Losail Circuit this evening as the 2010 MotoGP roared into life. After making useful progress through session, Repsol Honda riders Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa lay in 4th and 11th places when the chequered flag waved at 11.30pm to bring the opening session of the year to a close. Dovizioso, who begins his second season with the factory Honda squad, underlined the ever-improving potential he showed through the winter test period by finishing in the top four tonight. The Italian and his crew started working from the base machine settings they established at the test held at this circuit three weeks ago and, in lower grip conditions, he was able to set a laptime of 1m 56.698s, which was 1.198s behind today’s fastest time set by Casey Stoner. Dovizioso's Honda RC212V was quickest through the Losail speed trap tonight with a fastest recorded speed of 319.1kmh (198. 2mph), and the 24-year-old is confident that he can advance his set-up tomorrow and move closer to the front riders in terms of lap time too. His team-mate Dani Pedrosa finished tonight’s session a fraction over four tenths of a second behind Dovizioso and also promised a move closer to the front in tomorrow’s two sessions. The Spanish rider had some positive results from a slightly modified chassis he was using and, with more track time, is cautiously confident there is more to come through the weekend. Another hour of practice ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying session will be followed by Sunday’s floodlit race, which is set to start at 23:00hrs. ANDREA DOVIZIOSO – 4th – 1m 56.698 “I’m confident after this first session, and I think we can build on this. We started with the same base set-up from the test here, but actually the track conditions were different and there was less grip tonight. We also discovered some small issues that didn’t allow us to use all the potential of the bike so I’m sure we can get quicker. We tried a slightly modified swingarm tonight and we felt a small improvement with it, so we’ll use that tomorrow as well. Stoner’s lap time is very fast and our gap to the front is still big but anyway we need to analyse what we’ve learned from this session and use it to move further forward in tomorrow’s sessions. Our target for tomorrow is to lap in the low 1m 56s.” DANI PEDROSA – 11th – 1m 57.133 “Well, we made some progress in this session and there are some modifications that we tried that improved the feeling a little bit. We should be able to continue with that through the weekend, though today we had a couple of issues with the machine which meant we lost some testing time and didn’t make as much progress as we could have done. My finishing position isn’t great today but the team is pushing very hard and we’ll continue that way. We remain optimistic for the two practice sessions tomorrow. Our lap times today were about the same as the test here three weeks ago so we’ll be looking to make a big improvement tomorrow and confirm the direction we’re going in.” TOSHIYUKI YAMAJI - REPSOL HONDA TEAM MANAGER “So the 2010 season has begun and the Repsol Honda Team is glad to be back on track at Qatar for the first race of the year. We have started the season with a useful first practice session here and we can move forward from this base through the weekend. Andrea did a good job again today and, with a few modifications to the settings of his machine, he can get closer still to the front - as he was here during testing. Dani also made some progress today and if we can iron out a few problems for him, we’re sure there’s more to come in tomorrow’s two sessions. The Team is working very hard and that’s how it will continue.” -- Bridgestone Report Bridgestone slick compounds available: Front: Medium, Extra Hard. Rear: Medium, Hard Ducati Team’s Casey Stoner has started his 2010 season strongly, at a circuit where he has taken victory every year since 2007 on Bridgestone tyres. After the first 60 minutes of free practice at Losail, he favoured the harder option Bridgestone slicks to record the fastest time of the session, just over 0.2seconds off his pole position time from 2009. Completing the top three were the Fiat Yamaha pairing of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, separated by just 0.002seconds. Both riders also set their fastest time using the harder Bridgestone slicks. Once again, this season the softer option slicks are distinguishable from the harder options by a white line painted around each sidewall on the softer front and rear tyres. In a change to the tyre regulations for this season, after the end of this first session every rider can now choose their favoured compound for the final two front tyres they receive from their total allocation of eight. Before the session every rider received six front tyres in three of each compound; medium and extra hard. Now that they have had a chance to get a feel for how each compound is working for them this race weekend, they can select an additional two front tyres of their preferred compound to use for the rest of the weekend. Tohru Ubukata – Manager, Bridgestone Motorcycle Tyre Development Department “The condition of the circuit was much better today than it was during the test here last month, so there was no problem with graining today even on the softer compound slicks. Durability was consequently good, and some riders, including Casey, completed the session using just one set of tyres. “Even though the circuit was relatively clean and free from sand, most riders favoured the harder options because of the increased stability they offer under heavy braking as a result of the harder and stiffer rubber. Some riders used the softer compounds at the end of the session though to record their fastest laps, so this demonstrates that in these conditions there is a good overlap in terms of performance between both slick tyre compounds we have brought to Qatar and the wide working range of our tyres.” |
| Moto2
Alex De Angelis finished the first ever Moto2 free practice with the fastest time, after demoting 17-year-old Briton, Scott Redding, from the top of the timesheet right at the end of the hour-long session. Redding was the first to stake his claim for the number one spot, turning in his fastest time of 2'03.834 with just 15 minutes of the session remaining. The Marc VDS rider held on at the top of the timesheet until just five minutes before the end, when De Angelis bettered his time by over half a second on his RSM Team Scot machine. Reigning 250cc World Champion, Julian Simon, finished third fastest aboard his Mapfre Aspar RSV, just 0.199s ahead of Swiss rider, Dominique Aegerter, who surprised everyone with a near perfect lap in the dying moments of the session. Stefan Bradl was fifth fastest on his Viessman Kiefer Suter MMX, followed closely by Roberto Rolfo, Alex Debon, Karel Abraham and former 125cc World Champion, Gabor Talmacsi. Alex Baldolini rounded out the top ten, in a field that numbered 41 riders. 125cc Derbi proved that they would be a potent force in this year's 125cc World Championship, by taking the four top spots on the timesheet during this evening's opening free practice session in Qatar. Pol Espargaro led the charge, recording a time of 2'07.218 to secure the honours as today's fastest rider. Efren Vasquez was second quickest, just 0.312 adrift of his teammate. Another Derbi, this time in Red Bull colours and ridden by Marc Marquez, claimed third place, with Sandro Cortese and his Avant Mitsubishi Ajo branded bike in fourth position. Spaniard Nico Terol was the highest placed rider on an Aprilia, taking fifth place for the Bancaja Aspar team ahead of the similarly mounted Randy Krummenacher and Esteve Rabat. Johann Zarco and Tomoyoshi Koyama finished in eight and ninth place respectively, while Danny Webb rounded out the top ten, despite crashing his Andalucia Cajasol Aprilia and taking no part in the final 17 minutes of the session. Runner-up in last year's 125cc World Championship, Bradley Smith, finished down in 12th place, having spent much of the session making adjustments to his Bancaja Aspar Aprilia. |
| Moto2 FP1 | 125cc FP1 |
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| 2010 MotoGP Season Coverage |
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-- Rnd 2 - Jerez - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Pictorials - Gallery A - B -- Rnd 1 - Qatar - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Pictorials - Gallery A - B - C - D - E - F - G -- Pre Season Team Launches
-- Pre Season Testing
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