Pedrosa leads Friday practice in Spain

Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa dominated events on Friday’s first day of practice for his home race, the Cinzano Grand of Catalunya. The 21-year-old local favorite blitzed the competition in the morning session at the 4.727km (2.937-mile) Montmelo circuit, finishing over 0.4s ahead of his nearest rival with a lap of 1m 43.099s – a time that was not bettered by anyone in the afternoon. Despite walking away from a high speed fall early in the second one-hour session, Pedrosa stayed at the top of the timesheets until the dying seconds of afternoon practice, eventually finishing with the third fastest time.

Dani Pedrosa – “This morning went quite well and I was able to ride with a fast and consistent pace for quite a few laps, which was a positive start to the weekend. The set-up looks OK and, even though we still have to work on the tire choice, we’re in quite good shape. This afternoon I was feeling confident but unfortunately I ran wide in Turn Three, got onto the dirty part of the track with too much lean and fell off. It was my mistake and was actually quite a normal crash. I was lucky that I was not hurt, but unfortunately there was a lot of damage to the bike so the mechanics have a bit of work to do. After that I wasn’t able to go quite as quickly because the set-up of the second bike was good but not perfect, so once that’s sorted things are looking quite good for tomorrow."

Rider Team Time
1 Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda Team 1m 43.099s
2 Valentino Rossi Fiat Yamaha Team 1m 43.313s
3 John Hopkins Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m 43.389s
4 Casey Stoner Ducati Marlboro Team 1m 43.543s
5 Toni Elias Honda Gresini 1m 43.551s
6 Loris Capirossi Ducati Marlboro Team 1m 43.631s
7 Chris Vermeulen Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m 43.713s
8 Colin Edwards Fiat Yamaha Team 1m 43.768s
9 Marco Melandri Honda Gresini 1m 43.811s
10 Alex Barros Pramac d’Antin 1m 43.857s
11 Carlos Checa Honda LCR 1m 43.866s
12 Shinya Nakano Konica Minolta Honda 1m 44.003s
13 Randy De Puniet Kawasaki Racing Team 1m 44.141s
14 Nicky Hayden Repsol Honda Team 1m 44.267s
15 Olivier Jacque Kawasaki Racing Team 1m 44.466s
16 Alex Hofmann Pramac d'Antin 1m 44.528s
17 Sylvain Guintoli Dunlop Yamaha Tech 1m 44.665s