Dani Pedrosa picked up where he left off in Indianapolis, USA last weekend by topping the timesheets in Friday practice for the Sanmarinese Grand Prix in Misano, Italy while Andrea Dovizioso was second quickest.
Pedrosa clocked a fastest time of 1’34.772 to knock championship leader Jorge Lorenzo off the top, and was the only rider to go under 1’35” in the hour-long session. Team-mate Dovizioso finished 0.6 seconds behind the Spaniard in second – just ahead of Lorenzo.
GEPA Pictures/Red Bull Photofiles
Home favourite Valentino Rossi was the only other rider to get within a minute of Pedrosa as he finished the day fourth quickest. Behind the top four, Colin Edwards and Ben Spies were fifth and sixth on their Yamahas while the Ducatis of Nicky Hayden and Casey Stoner were seventh and eighth respectively. Hiroshi Aoyama was 15th.
Pedrosa didn’t have much time to celebrate his win at the Brickyard last Sunday as he and the Repsol Honda team immediately made the trip to Europe. However, after reaching three wins in a season for the first time he is confident ahead of Sunday’s race in Misano.
“We are at a very competitive moment right now and three wins so far this year is more than I had in my previous MotoGP seasons,” the 24-year-old said. “It’s a nice milestone to pass and so I’m feeling very confident for the next races. Indianapolis was great and it was very satisfying to win such a physically demanding race, however, we don’t have so much time to recover before Misano this weekend.
“The gap in the championship to Lorenzo is still very big and he has been very consistent, so our goal for the rest of the season is simply to continue being competitive at every GP and give ourselves the chance to win races, starting with another one this weekend.”
GEPA Pictures/Red Bull Photofiles
The trip to Misano is especially exciting for Dovzioso as he grew up less than 60km from the track and took his very first steps towards MotoGP there. After regaining third place in the overall standings from Stoner last week the Italian is now intent on returning to the podium.
“We arrive in Misano in very determined mood; our target is the podium,” Dovizioso said before Friday practice. “In Indianapolis we were fast during the race weekend but we couldn’t maintain consistent speed for the whole race distance and this is something we must work on and improve. Now we need to score some strong results.”
From more news and features from Misano, head to our dedicated event page.
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