Pedrosa laps under circuit record at Indy, Casey, fifth
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The Repsol Honda Team kicked off the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix in fine form today, with Dani Pedrosa topping the time sheets on the first day of free practice with Casey Stoner in fifth position at the World famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
With heavy rainfall from the night before, track conditions were poor in the morning session. However, by the afternoon the grip level had improved considerably and both Repsol Honda riders made progress with their bike set up. Dani took the biggest advantage of the better conditions, lapping 2.4 seconds quicker than the morning session with a 1'39.783 - faster than the circuit record of 1'39.807 set by Casey here in 2011.
Casey, the fastest in FP1, also improved his lap times by 1.3 seconds in the afternoon, but late in the session he experienced an issue in the rear of the bike which is still being investigated and prevented him from setting a faster time than 1'40.623, placing him in 5th at the end of day one.
DANI PEDROSA
"This afternoon the track was a little better than in the morning and we were able to improve our lap times quite a lot and also try the hard tyres, which worked much better than the soft specification we tried this morning. As we saw today, the times will keep dropping during the weekend with more rubber on the asphalt, so we have to continue working hard on the bike. We found a good base today to move on from; we can improve every area still, focusing especially on the suspension and electronics and also care about the tyres because it's very hot out there and the tyres dropped off very quick".
CASEY STONER
"We tried a couple of things this morning but with the track being so slippery we didn't really take anything from it. This afternoon we knew what we wanted to try after the morning session but unfortunately we had some issues with the bike. We had a problem with electronics on one exit and then a strange feeling in the rear on a later exit, perhaps a stone got into the chain or something, we're not sure yet. Due to the fact we couldn't identify what the problem was, we decided to use the second bike and I only managed a few laps. A slightly disappointing afternoon and we know what we want to work on tomorrow morning".
Practice Results
1 Dani Pedrosa 1'39.783 SPA HONDA Repsol Honda Team
2 Ben Spies 1'40.078 USA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing Team
3 Jorge Lorenzo 1'40.502 SPA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing Team
4 Andrea Dovizioso 1'40.560 ITA YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
5 Casey Stoner 1'40.623 AUS HONDA Repsol Honda Team
6 Cal Crutchlow 1'41.055 GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
7 Alvaro Bautista 1'41.072 SPA HONDA San Carlo Honda Gresini
8 Stefan Bradl 1'41.255 GER HONDA LCR Honda MotoGP
9 Nicky Hayden 1'41.397 USA DUCATI Ducati Team
10 Valentino Rossi 1'41.529 ITA DUCATI Ducati Team
11 Randy De Puniet 1'41.855 FRA ART Aspar Team MotoGP
12 Karel Abraham 1'42.279 CZE DUCATI Cardion AB Motoracing
13 Mattia Pasini 1'42.290 ITA ART Speed Master
14 Aleix Espargaro 1'42.360 ESP ART Aspar Team MotoGP
15 Yonny Hernandez 1'42.761 COL BQR-FTR BQR
16 Michelle Pirro 1'42.761 ITA HONDA San Carlo Honda Gresini
17 Toni Elías 1'43.095 SPA DUCATI Pramac Racing
18 Colin Edwards 1'43.813 USA SUTER NGM Mobile Forward Racing
19 Ivan Silva 1'44.122 SPA BQR-FTR BQR
20 James Ellison 1'44.127 GBR ART Paul Bird Racing
21 Danilo Petrucci 1'44.609 ITA IODA Ioda Racing Project
22 Aaron Yates 1'46.021 USA N/A GP Tech
23 Steve Rapp 1'46.619 USA N/A Attack Performance
sumber : repsol honda press release