Team San Carlo Honda Gresini complete first European practice
of the season
 The
first day of free practice for the Grand Prix of Spain took
place today at Jerez de la Frontera and it ended in positive
fashion for Team San Carlo Honda Gresini, with Alex De Angelis
completing some valuable tyre work ahead of Sunday’s
race. The San Marino rider also worked on the setting of his
bike as he attempted to shave vital tenths off his lap time
by improving his feeling under braking.
Shinya Nakano crashed on the final lap of his afternoon session,
although the Japanese rider and his crew had made good use
of the two practices as they gathered important data for the
current track temperatures, which are higher than they were
during the preseason test here.
Alex de Angelis (22 laps 1.41.189): “It
has gone well because the lap times of the riders are all
very close today and I’m convinced that with a few positive
changes to the bike we can get much closer to the front. In
qualifying tomorrow we’ll have to work really hard on
getting the most out of the softer tyre because it is the
most decisive factor for us at the moment. My race pace is
good and we have another couple of cards up our sleeve to
play tomorrow in order to improve.”
Shinya Nakano (24 laps 1.41.393): “Today
we’ve closed the gap that there was to the other riders
in Qatar and shaved off some important tenths. We are working
hard to improve the feeling of the bike, working on the base
setting we found during the IRTA tests here a couple of months
ago. Today the temperature was higher than we expected so
we decided to try a harder tyre to get more up-to-date information.
The harder tyre was the reason for my crash but luckily we
escaped without any injury.”
Official lap times:
1 Jorge LORENZO SPA Fiat Yamaha Team YAMAHA 1'40.321
2 Valentino ROSSI ITA Fiat Yamaha Team YAMAHA 1'40.364
3 Colin EDWARDS USA Tech 3 Yamaha YAMAHA 1'40.584
4 Nicky HAYDEN USA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'40.673
5 Dani PEDROSA SPA Repsol Honda Team HONDA 1'40.815
6 Casey STONER AUS Ducati Marlboro Team DUCATI 1'40.877
7 Andrea DOVIZIOSO ITA JiR Team Scot MotoGP HONDA 1'40.909
8 James TOSELAND GBR Tech 3 Yamaha YAMAHA 1'41.028
9 Loris CAPIROSSI ITA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP SUZUKI 1'41.157
10 Alex DE ANGELIS RSM San Carlo Honda Gresini HONDA 1'41.189
11 Randy DE PUNIET FRA LCR Honda MotoGP HONDA 1'41.268
12 Chris VERMEULEN AUS Rizla Suzuki MotoGP SUZUKI 1'41.303
13 Shinya NAKANO JPN San Carlo Honda Gresini HONDA 1'41.393
14 John HOPKINS USA Kawasaki Racing Team KAWASAKI 1'41.519
15 Marco MELANDRI ITA Ducati Marlboro Team DUCATI 1'41.825
16 Sylvain GUINTOLI FRA Alice Team DUCATI 1'42.115
17 Anthony WEST AUS Kawasaki Racing Team KAWASAKI 1'42.181
18 Toni ELIAS SPA Alice Team DUCATI 1'42.183
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