Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa made solid starts to their respective Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix weekends at Laguna Seca, completing the top four behind Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo.
Dovizioso was 0.526s off Stoner’s marker and the Italian rider was extremely satisfied with the immediacy of his comfort on his factory RC212V.
He said: “We got into a good rhythm quickly and we’re faster than we were last year here so I’m happy with the start. This year’s RC212V is much more controllable and so it’s quite a lot easier to get into a rhythm and set quick and consistent lap times.”
“On our last run out of the pits we tried some new electronics settings for traction control and the feeling was generally good. Of course we need to continue working on this and testing them tomorrow to understand the changes better, but it’s a positive step.”
Dovizioso also commented on the asymmetric hard rear tyre provided by Bridgestone, adding: “It is working well. I used the harder Bridgestones for my fastest laps so I’m confident we can find a good race setting and also qualify well tomorrow.”
Pedrosa was a further 0.334s down on his team-mate’s time and despite being just under nine-tenths off Stoner’s pace was buoyed by the potential he feels in his machine.
“I know we can improve quite a lot from today so I’m reasonably confident about the rest of the weekend,” stated the Spaniard, who is going for his first back-to-back premier class wins at round nine. “After the first run this afternoon we made some settings adjustments to the bike which didn’t improve the pace as we’d anticipated and there are a few areas we need to work on in order to move forward.”
“For the first day the lap times at the top are quick already but I’m not worried about the gap because I know we can improve from here. We need to work to increase the grip at the rear and also get some more stability at the front. Last year here we were also not so fast on the first day so we’ll keep working and get ready to take a step forward tomorrow,” added last year’s Laguna Seca race winner.
Source: http://www.motogp.com/en/news/
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