Pedrosa tops time sheet at Jerez MotoGP test

1. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Repsol Honda Team 1’39.425
2.  Valentino Rossi (ITA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1’39.480
3. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Fiat Yamaha Team 1’39.506
4. Randy de Puniet (FRA) LCR Honda MotoGP 1’39.609
5. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) Repsol Honda Team 1’39.760
6. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati Marlboro Team 1’39.786
7. Nicky Hayden (USA) Ducati Marlboro Team 1’39.906
8. Ben Spies (USA) Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1’39.958
9. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1’40.040
10. Colin Edwards (USA) Monster Yamaha Tech 3 1’40.042
11. Marco Melandri (ITA) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1’40.129
12. Marco Simoncelli (ITA) San Carlo Honda Gresini 1’40.370
13. Mika Kallio (FIN) Pramac Green Team 1’40.446
14. Alvaro Bautista (SPA) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1’40.463
15. Hiroshi Aoyama (JAP) Interwetten-Honda MotoGP 1’40.470
16. Aleix Espargaro (SPA) Pramac Green Team 1’40.686
17. Hector Barbera (SPA) Aspar Team 1’40.932

1.  Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha ESP 45
2.  Valentino Rossi Yamaha ITA 41
3.  Daniel Pedrosa Honda ESP 29
4.  Nicky Hayden Ducati USA 26
5.  Andrea Dovizioso Honda ITA 26
6.  Randy De Puniet Honda FRA 17
7.  Colin Edwards Yamaha USA 12
8.  Marco Melandri Honda ITA 11
9.  Ben Spies Yamaha USA 11
10.  Casey Stoner Ducati AUS 11
11.  Marco Simoncelli Honda ITA 10
12.  Mika Kallio Ducati FIN 9
13.  Hiroshi Aoyama Honda JPN 8
14.  Loris Capirossi Suzuki ITA 7
15.  Hector Barbera Ducati ESP 7

The Fiat Yamaha Team made the most of a rare day’s testing today at Jerez, one of the few post-race tests they will have this season. Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo had a busy and successful day, finishing second and third respectively in the standings behind Dani Pedrosa.

Rossi, who finished third in the race yesterday, worked with his crew to improve the M1 race setting, trying to understand the problems that had hampered them during the weekend. It was a largely successful day as his fastest time was an improvement on his best time from the weekend. He also tried a new engine evolution, which it is hoped will improve acceleration, reporting a small improvement. The Italian had one upset during the day when he had a low-speed crash at turn two, luckily causing no further damage to his recovering shoulder.

After his incredible home win yesterday, Lorenzo had to delay the celebrations one day more in order to get back on board today. The main aim for his side of the garage today was to try to improve his starts and his early race performance, and the Spaniard did over 20 practice starts during the day. He too had some new parts to try, including a chassis development, electronics and the modified engine. Lorenzo, who turns 23 tomorrow, finished the day in third, just behind his team-mate.

Rossi – Position: 2nd Time: 1’39.480 Laps: 61
“We improved our race setting a bit and found better stability and grip, so we arrived at the right place finally, even if we were too late for the race! We tried a new front tyre for Bridgestone, which was good and also a slightly different engine from Japan, trying to improve the acceleration. The difference was small but important, although we don’t know yet when we will be able to use it in a race. My lap times were fast and apart from the small crash, when I just put a bit too much lean on and lost the front, it was a good day. I was only doing 65 km/h so luckily it wasn’t a problem. Now we have a long rest and I want to fully recover so I’m back to full strength in Le Mans.”

Lorenzo – Position: 3rd Time: 1’39.506 Laps: 71
“It was an interesting day. Most of all we worked on our starts; I think I did something like 25 starts! I do find it quite difficult because the clutch and acceleration aren’t always the best parts of our package, but today was good to understand how we can improve. We also tried some new electronics, including traction control, and chassis parts, as well as trying a slightly different engine. The difference wasn’t big but I did notice it, so I think this is the right way. Tomorrow is my birthday and I am looking forward to finally celebrating my win!”

Team Manager
“This was a very positive test because we tried many things and got some good information. The first important thing was to try to improve the setting of the weekend and understand where we went wrong, and this was more or less successful. Then we tried some different electronic maps and a new front Bridgestone which was very promising. Finally we tested a slightly different engine; a developed model that we may not see soon but our feedback will be very valuable for Yamaha in their future work. An important day’s work.”

Team Manager
“Today was very interesting, especially because we don’t have many tests this year. We worked largely on trying to understand why Jorge is so much faster later in the race and also we worked on starts, because we need to improve them too. We found out some interesting information, which will help us to understand how to have the same speed throughout the race. We need to go to another track now to get a better idea of the situation but hopefully the work we’ve done today will be very useful.”

—  Ducati Report

The Ducati Marlboro Team were back on track in breezy but pretty warm conditions at Jerez today for the first of two post-race test days planned for this season. Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden took the opportunity to try a variety of different set-up options, clocking the sixth and seventh fastest times respectively.

Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro Team) 6th fastest 1:39.786 (66 laps)
“Today was quite productive because we found a race set-up for this track that was better than yesterday, with improved front feeling which is what we had been looking for all weekend. We went for quite a radical change and it did the trick but we’ll have to wait and see if it works at other circuits because this place tends to put more pressure on front tyres than a lot of places and it requires a particular approach. Anyway, we go to Le Mans with a lot of useful data and hopefully it can help us there too.”

Nicky Hayden (Ducati Marlboro Team) 7th fastest 1:39.906 (70 laps)
“It has been a useful day even though we haven’t found anything spectacular. That’s to be expected because we have taken huge steps forward to get to this point and it’s always going to be more tricky to find those last couple of tenths. We changed some things with the geometry, suspension settings and a few general areas that we hadn’t had time to try over the weekend. We got a lot of data which will be useful because we don’t have another chance to test until after Brno.”

—  HRC Report

The traditional post-Spanish Grand Prix one day test session for MotoGP teams at the 4.423km Jerez circuit was run in perfect weather conditions and the Honda RC212V riders and team technicians worked non-stop from 10.00. until 18.00. testing new parts and as many set up options as time permitted. All six RCV riders improved upon their race performances of yesterday with Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda, who finished second in the grand prix, topping the time sheets today.

Pedrosa, and Repsol Honda team mate Andrea Dovizioso, had a full day testing a variety of updated engine and chassis parts brought to Jerez by the HRC engineers. Both men improved upon their best lap times posted in Sunday’s grand prix, Pedrosa’s best time of 1m 39.425s was three-tenths of a second inside the track record he established in the race.

Pedrosa has struggled to adapt to the Ohlins suspension system that the Honda factory team has chosen to run this season but today he finally made the sort of progress he has been chasing all season. Dovizioso has more experience with Ohlins and he was on the pace from the outset today. The Italian was very pleased with the new swinging arm and chassis specifications which, together with updated engine performance, particularly the increased acceleration, allowed him to slash seven-tenths off his best race lap with a time of 1m 39.760s.

LCR Honda rider Randy de Puniet was disappointed with his performance in Sunday’s 27 lap race. The Frenchman started the race form sixth on the grid but a bad start and traffic restricted him to a ninth place finish in the race. De Puniet was consistently fast all day today his best lap one second better than his best race lap yesterday.

The San Carlo Honda Gresini duo of Marco Melandri and Marco Simoncelli put their track time to good use today with both men setting faster lap times than during Sunday’s race. More importantly the test allowed the Gresini team technicians the time they need to test the multipule chassis and suspension options available to them in order to get the best out of the overall set up on the Bridgestone control tyres.

Melandri was stronger today than during the race weekend, his race simulation was the most encouraging result and the team made progress on set up while using the softer Bridgestone tyre compound, something that has plagued Melandri from the beginning of the season.

MotoGP Rookie Simoncelli has suffered with rear grip problems since he first rode the RCV and still has much work if he is to improve his rolling chassis set up to a point where he is completely comfortable. He made progress in some areas and was almost half a second faster during the test than in the race.

Hiro Aoyama, Interwetten Honda, put in a marathon session today running 97 laps of the Andalucian circuit. The Japanese MotoGP Rookie still has much to learn about the RC212V and spent the day working on general machine set up trying several alternative configurations and was pleased with the results having set lap times faster than during the GP on Sunday, his best over one second faster than his best race lap..

Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda: 1st. 1m 39.425s – 60 laps. “This was a useful day of testing and we spent some time working in detail on suspension adjustments – some of the things we didn’t have the time to test in the pre-season because we were focusing on other issues. We also tried a modified spec engine and collected some information for the development engineers, but it’s too early to say whether it’s a step forward yet because we only had two runs out of the pits with it. The crash was a little strange and I wasn’t expecting it, but the important thing is that I’m not hurt and I can look forward to Le Mans which is a circuit I’ve raced well at before. I’m looking forward to the next round.”

Randy de Puniet, LCR Honda: 4th. 1m 39.609s – 63 laps.
Unavailable at time of distribution.

Andrea Dovizioso, Repsol Honda: 5th. 1m 39.760s –
71 laps. “I’m happy with my lap time today and, although the track conditions were better than yesterday, 39.7 is a good time on the Bridgestone harder option tyre and it’s only two tenths behind the fastest time set with that tyre, so I’m pretty satisfied with that. Our machine lacks a bit of stability so it’s not easy to be consistent but I’m really happy with the new parts Honda has brought here. We tried the new chassis and swingarm which have improved the last part of the braking area and corner entry. The new specification engine has improved the acceleration slightly and we’ll look at the data and decide if we’ll use it in the upcoming races.”

Marco Melandri, San Carlo Gresini Honda: 11th. 1m 40.129s – 84 laps. “It has been a really positive day which we have spent working on our race pace, having suffered a little yesterday after a few laps with a full tank. We made some changes and completed a race simulation to see if they had the desired effect and I’m quite happy with what we found. I also tried for a fast time on a soft tyre but I ran into too many riders on track and didn’t manage to improve by the few tenths that I could have but really that wasn’t the priority today. Things are progressing now and although we are still some way short of the top guys we still have to take things step by step. My pace today was noticeably stronger than yesterday, when I only managed two laps in the 1’40s and spent the rest of the time in the mid-1’41s. Today I was consistently in the 1’40s so I’m confident about going to Le M ans, where I hope we can take another step forward.”

Marco Simoncelli, San Carlo Gresini Honda:
12th. 1m 40.370s – 83 laps. “I’m quite happy because we found a few positive things today. We haven’t completely resolved the problem I had in the race but we reduced it and I managed to improve my pace on a consistent basis on hard tyres so I’m happy. We didn’t manage to find any more rear grip but we took other steps forward, like improving my speed on a soft tyre, so we go to Le Mans with high hopes of doing well. With time to sit down and analyse the data we gathered here, working out what worked and what didn’t, I’m sure we can improve even more in time for the next race. We could do with test days like these more often!”

Hiro Aoyama, Interwetten Honda: 15th. 1m 40.470s – 97 laps “We did a lot of testing today and we were able to find some positive things. I could gain some more experience because of this test and I have some ideas for the upcoming Grand Prix. The average lap times were better than in the race, this means we improved and that is good. I would have loved to be even faster, but I will keep that for the next time.”