MotoGP
Strong start for Stoner at Silverstone
Repsol Honda Team
Edited: Jun 16, 2012, 6:47 AM
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World Champion Casey Stoner leads the way on the first day of free practices at the British Grand Prix, with teammate Dani Pedrosa in ninth position.
Casey Stoner, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Repsol Media
The British weather played a big role in both sessions, and the MotoGP™ riders had their first taste of Silverstone's notoriously tricky conditions. After a wet session in the morning where Stoner and Pedrosa finished 4th and 7th respectively, the Repsol Honda Team were hoping for a dry afternoon session to begin set up work on the RC213V with the new front tyre. However, a brief shower at the beginning of FP2 prevented the riders making the most of the 45-minute session.
Stoner, the winner here last year, managed only 10 laps in dry conditions but it was enough time for him to set the fastest lap time with 2'04.791. Pedrosa, who missed last year's race due to his collarbone injury, completed 14 laps and finished 0.8 tenths off his team mate.
Casey Stoner
"We didn't learn very much from today. In the first session we tried understand the bike in the wet a little better, but it was gradually drying out throughout the session so it was difficult to take any real data. It was a similar situation this afternoon, we went out for a couple of laps and it started to rain, which destroyed most of the session. We found the bike very hard to ride so we came in and made a change, which took a lot of time and we didn't manage so many laps. It would be nice if we get some better weather again tomorrow and this wind makes things very tricky, but everyone is in the same position. The chatter is a little better, we made another small improvement but we'll need to check it tomorrow in some more consistent conditions."
Dani Pedrosa
"It's been a tough day for me because it's a long time since I was here and it almost felt like a new track to me. I treated both practices as learning sessions, trying to learn the gears, the lines in the corners, the braking points and to find out the low grip areas. So, for me it was like a reminder in both wet and dry conditions and tonight I need to process all the information in my mind and get a little more used to the race track tomorrow and improve, in any condition. In the afternoon we used the new Bridgestone front tyre, the softer compound due to the cold conditions here, but we did just a few laps. As I said in Barcelona we need to tune the set up of the bike a little to work better with this tyre because for us it is too soft. Working with the weight distribution we might improve the performance."
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