The Spaniard, who lost the championship lead after being forced to see rivals Yamaha lock out the podium in Sunday's French Grand Prix, edged out race winner Valentino Rossi by just more than half a second on the first day of post-race testing.
Rossi was far from unhappy though, and he was the sole Fiat Yamaha representative, with teammate Jorge Lorenzo returning home to Spain to allow his injured ankles to recover.
"Today was a good day, even if it was quite hard to get back to work after the great day we had yesterday," said Rossi. "We tested many different tyres with Bridgestone, both qualifiers and race tyres, and collected a lot of information.
"The tyres we tested today were mostly for the future development, not so much for the next few races, but it's very important to look ahead like this and we found some good material.
"Of course we worked on the setting a bit as well and also tested some new electronic maps, and now we will continue with more tyre testing again tomorrow. Our aim for this test is just to make sure the bike is in the best possible shape for the Italian challenge that is waiting around the corner."
World champion Casey Stoner was third quickest as he spent the day focusing on electronic work to try and improve engine performance - which is why he did not try out qualifying tyres.
Chris Vermeulen showed the ever improving pace of the Rizla Suzuki team to set the fourth fastest time, ahead of Kawasaki's John Hopkins and Loris Capirossi, also on the Rizla Suzuki.
Pos Rider Team Time 1. Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda 1:33.106 2. Valentino Rossi Fiat Yamaha Team 1:33.661 3. Casey Stoner Ducati Marlboro 1:33.994 4. Chris Vermeulen Rizla Suzuki 1:34.108 5. John Hopkins Kawasaki Racing 1:34.484 6. Loris Capirossi Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1:34.730 7. Nicky Hayden Repsol Honda 1:34.752 8. Shinya Nakano San Carlo Honda Gresini 1:34.911 9. Alex De Angelis San Carlo Honda Gresini 1:34.926 10. Anthony West Kawasaki Racing 1:35.082 11. Marco Melandri Ducati Marlboro 1:36.064 12. Erwan Nigon HRC Test Team 1:37.389 13. Olivier Jacque Kawasaki Racing 1:37.424 All Timing Unofficial
No comments:
Post a Comment