REPSOL HONDA RIDERS LEARN MORE AT LE MANS
Dani Pedrosa was the fastest again in Le Mans, thanks to
the improvements to his Honda RC212V 2008. Hayden, who completed
over 100 laps, also improved on yesterday's times
Repsol Honda riders Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden stayed on
at Le Mans today for a busy day of testing following yesterday’s
French Grand Prix. Both riders focused on evaluating Michelin
tyres and different chassis set-up solutions in preparation
for the next MotoGP event at Mugello, Italy, on June 1.
Pedrosa set the fastest lap of the tests, using qualifying
tyres and the end of the day, while hard-working Hayden used
race tyres throughout his impressive run of 113 laps.
Mugello is the first of a quick-fire run of six races over
eight weekends. Hayden’s next duty, however, is this
coming weekend, when he will ride a demo lap aboard a 2007
RC212V just before the start of the huge Indy 500 car race
to promote September’s inaugural Indianapolis MotoGP
event.
Quotes
MotoGP
Dani Pedrosa >> fastest lap: 1m 33.106s (77 laps)
“I think we made some positive steps today. We focused
on the front end, looking to improve feeling, so I tested
several different front tyres and tried several different
set-up solutions. I also tried some different electronics
settings.
I’m quite satisfied, we’ve learned a few things
that should be useful at the next few races. It was difficult
sometimes because the weather was quite cold, but finally
it worked out okay. At the end of the day I used a qualifying
tyre because we had to test something for qualifying. Now
I’m looking forward to Mugello, a great track with an
incredible atmosphere, where I hope we can have a better race.”
Nicky Hayden >> fastest lap: 1m 34.752s (113
laps)
“It was a hard weekend, today we found a couple of band
aids for the problems we’ve had here. We only tested
with race tyres and we improved our pace. I was able to go
quicker than we went yesterday but still not enough. We tried
a lot of solutions and I can’t really say we really
found any cures for the braking stability and for getting
the bike to enter the corner better.
We went through a lot of stuff which at least we can now rule
out. We tried mainly setting changes and a few tyres, which
could possibly work well for us at other tracks, which we
needed to get a little bit of data on. It looked like the
sky could open up any time, it stayed dry but it wasn’t
a day for the beach! I feel a little better now, so hopefully
Mugello will go smoother for us.”
Results
1. Dani PEDROSA (REPSOL HONDA) 1:33.106
2. Valentino ROSSI (YAMAHA) 1:33.661
3. Casey STONER (DUCATI) 1:33.994
4. Chris VERMEULEN (SUZUKI) 1:34.108
5. John HOPKINS (KAWASAKI) 1:34.484
7. Nicky HAYDEN (REPSOL HONDA) 1:34.752
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