Grand Prix of the United States
Laguna Seca Circuit, United States
Friday 21 July 2006 - Free Practice
 GOOD
SENSATIONS FOR HOFMANN,
CARDOSO STUDIES THE TRACK
Today on the American circuit of Laguna Seca, California,
the sun was shining and both the riders of the Team PRAMAC
D’ANTIN MOTOGP took part to the first practice sessions.
On this very complicated track, considered one of the most
spectacular, who makes the difference is who can understand
the “Corkscrew” and its descent better than others.
ALEX HOFMANN is satisfied, he did a good job with his Team
and classified himself 15th. JOSE LUIS CARDOSO, one of the
few riders that didn’t ride here last year, concentrated
himself on the learning of the track and is 19th. Tomorrow,
the Team will try to further improve the set-up of the DUCATI
DESMOSEDICI GP06 “Sat.”, and select the tires
to use during the race. After the last session of free practice
in the morning, there will be the single qualifying practice
session at 2:00 p.m, local time in the U.S. (GMT-7).
ALEX HOFMANN #66 (15th - 1’25.194):
“Today I can say I am quite happy, I had fun on this
track that seems to be more adapted to our tires. This morning,
I already had a good feeling during the first session, I made
many kilometres today and this allowed us to make a good job
on the set-up ; we already have a good base even if I need
to improve in two sections of the track. We are not so far
from the first riders, some hundredth always can change the
classification and I’m optimistic. I really like to
race here, the atmosphere is great and I’m very enthusiast!”.
JOSE LUIS CARDOSO #30 (19th - 1’27.020):
“From this morning, I managed to improve my laptimes
and my rhythm, but it’s quite difficult to find the
right references of the track. I raced here for the last time
in 1994, in the 250cc class, actually a very long time ago,
and it seems for me to ride on a new circuit. Tomorrow we
will work more than all on the frame and on the suspensions
; the tires are better here than on the preceding races. Anyway,
the most important will be to go on making kilometres, this
track is really complicated and I need to ride a lot on it”.
EMANUELE MARTINELLI – Track Engineer of Alex
Hofmann: “Today I can say I’m quite satisfied
about the work we did. The tires were quite a good surprise
here ; there are not going bad and this allowed us to make
a good job on the set-up. HOFMANN managed to ride a lot with
riders usually preceding him and he reduced his gap with the
first ones. It is true that on this track the laptimes are
always closer but we managed to precede other riders than
the ones riding with DUNLOP tires. Tomorrow, what we have
left to do is selecting the tires to use during the race.
The set-up is already at a good point and we will only need
to perfect it”.
1. Kenny Roberts Jr. 1’23.859
2. Nicky Hayden 1’24.125
3. Daniel Pedrosa 1’24.194
4. Marco Melandri 1’24.223
5. Chris Vermeulen 1’24.253
15. Alex Hofmann 1’25.194
19. Jose Luis Cardoso 1’27.020
Conditions: Dry / Air: 29°c / Ground: 50°c / Humidity:
13%
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