The Repsol Honda Trio in top five after the first day of free practices

GRAND PRIX OF GERMANY
MotoGP Round 9 : Sachsenring circuit, 15-17 July

Date : 15/07/2011
Weather : Dry
Temperature : Air: 22 degrees, Ground: 36 degrees
Humidity : 30%

The Repsol Honda Team has placed its three riders in the top five in a sunny but windy first day of free practices at the Sachsenring circuit.

Dani Pedrosa, last year's winner of the Grand Prix of Germany, was third on the timing sheets just two tenths of a second off the provisional pole position; Casey Stoner finished fourth and Andrea Dovizioso, fifth in one of the shortest but also most technical circuits of the MotoGP calendar. After an hour and a half of practice time, less than half a second separates the top five riders.

In the afternoon, the conditions of the track improved a little compared to this morning's free practice, when both Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa (along with Valentino Rossi and Toni Elias) suffered crashes due to the cold track temperatures in a circuit where it is especially difficult to warm up the tyres on the right hand corners. All four riders fell at the same place, in Turn 11, the long right hand corner after seven consecutive left hand corners.

Fortunately Dani and Casey avoided serious injury and both riders returned back on track in FP1. After the first session, the Australian had a precautionary X-ray on his right arm which confirmed there was no fracture, just a small bone contusion.

In the afternoon session, all three Repsol Honda riders consistently improved their times from FP1. Dani recorded his fastest lap in the last minute improving by 1.2 seconds, Casey by 0.5 seconds and Andrea by 0.7 seconds.

Andrea was in a good shape after his recent podium in Italy, he felt comfortable from the beginning in Sachsenring where he has decided to use, as has team mate Casey Stoner, the new swing arm that they tested in the post race test in Mugello. Dani didn't use it today, but will probably do so tomorrow.

DANI PEDROSA - 3rd 1'22.320
"We had a quite positive start despite the accident I had in the morning practice session. I crashed in the fast downhill right hand corner, like everyone else because the tyre was very cold and I had no warning. Fortunately I did not hurt myself which is good and in the afternoon I was able to improve my lap times because in the morning, after the crash, we didn't have much time on track. In the second practice, with sunshine and a little more temperature on the track, we had better grip especially in these critical turns on the right, although the track conditions are not great. Anyway, times are pretty good compared to last year although the track conditions are worse. We will keep working on the bike tomorrow and I will probably try the new swing arm I tested in Mugello on Monday".

CASEY STONER - 4th 1'22.542
"I'm not too happy with how today has gone, we had a crash second lap out in FP1 and this affected us quite a lot, we lost a lot of time coming in and changing leathers and then I had to go out on a bike that I wasn't quite as comfortable with, so apart from the last few laps, this morning's session was a bit of a waste for us. Then this afternoon we tried the bike from this mornings crash but something wasn't quite right with it so we had to come back in and get on the other bike. We definitely made some progress, we started using hard tyres front and rear and made some positive steps but we still need to take a big step forward tomorrow. Our confidence was knocked today and I'm feeling a little sore still but we remain positive for tomorrow and hopefully we'll be able to close the gap a little more".

ANDREA DOVIZIOSO - 5th 1'22.654
"I'm happy with how we worked in both sessions today. This is a complicated track as there are only three right corners and it's difficult to get the right side of the tyre into temperature and there is not so much grip. This morning it was colder than expected and we saw many crashes. We focused on riding constantly at a good pace without being too much on the limit. In this circuit you spend most of the time on the edge of the tyre so we tried to maintain a good rhythm to avoid stressing the tyres too much. We started well this morning and we improved in the afternoon session. We tried to ride consistently with race tyres as it's hard to maintain a good rhythm for the 30 laps of the GP on Sunday."

Practice Results

Circuit information

Sachsenring
AM Sachsenring
09353 Oberlungwitz
http://www.sachsenring-circuit.com

Circuit records