MotoGP Jerez Practice

Valentino Rossi was the fastest during the Free Practice session Friday at a sun-soaked Jerez de la Frontera circuit in Southern Spain. Rossi, who currently resides one point behind his teammate Jorge Lorenzo in the championship standings, made a few changes to his base setting and reaped the rewards immediately. The Doctor laid down 21 laps and clocked the fastest time of 1'39.647 on his Fiat Yamaha M1, finishing 0.364 seconds ahead of his compatriot Loris Capirossi in second.

Loris Capirossi used today's practice session to place the Rizla Suzuki GSV-R on the provisional front row with a lap time of 1'40.011. The Italian is confident for the qualifying round on Saturday and prospects for attaining his 100th podium this weekend.

Marlboro Ducati’s Casey Stoner started out with the same set-up that allowed him to set the fastest lap at the official preseason test in Jerez. The Australian lapped an impressive third (1'40.268) but complained of front end stability issues. Meanwhile, Casey’s American teammate, Nicky Hayden, spent the session working to adjust his set-up to the harder compound Bridgestone tire, but struggled to make the right changes in time to significantly improve his lap times, only managing 1’41.916 for 17th.

Following his victory in Japan Fiat Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo recorded the fourth-quickest time (1'40.441) in a decent homecoming return to Spain. The Mallorcan encountered a few unexpected problems in acceleration and wasn’t able to match the pace of Rossi, but will look to reduce the gap tomorrow in the second practice and qualifying sessions.

Chris Vermeulen (1'41.063, 20 laps) made steady progress during today's 45-minute session, ending the day with the eighth-fastest time and a lot of information that he hopes will point him in the right direction tomorrow.

It was not the best start for the Pramac Racing riders, Mika Kallio and Niccolò Canepa, who wound-up in 14th and 18th, respectively. Both the white and red riders decided to concentrate on fixing set up issues rather than recording the fastest lap time.

There is one more practice session at Jerez for the MotoGP paddock tomorrow morning. This is followed by a timed qualifying session in the afternoon to determine grid positions for Sunday's 27-lap race. The third round of the season gets underway at 14.00hrs local time (12.00hrs GMT) on Sunday.

Valentino Rossi – Fiat Yamaha – 1st in 1’39.647
“Today there’s no prize, like at the test here, but anyway it’s really good for our work to start in such a positive way. During the first two races we’ve had a couple of small problems and today we made a change in our setting in order to improve things and straight away we could see it was working. I could ride how I wanted with both the soft Bridgestone tire and the hard one, and I was the fastest for the whole session. It’s very hot today, which is for sure better than the rain of recent races but it means if it’s like this on Sunday then the race will be quite hard on the tires, so tomorrow we need to concentrate on refining our setting to help them as much as possible.”

Loris Capirossi – Rizla Suzuki – 2nd in 1'40.011
"It was not too bad today, but we still have a lot of work to do. We still have a bit of a problem with getting the right tires for here. We have already used the hardest tire we have - but it is not hard enough for us! We will have to adjust the bike a bit so that we use a bit less tire. Anyway I feel very good on the bike and I know that when we fix the problems we will go quicker and we will try our best for a good result here."

Casey Stoner - Ducati Marlboro - 3rd in 1’40.268
"We started with the setting from the test and everything felt quite good. We’re struggling with some small issues in a couple of areas but I think it was mainly because the tire pressure was too high and we just need to drop it down a little. We tried the second bike but unfortunately had a technical issue so I went back to my first one and tried a few things without improving the set-up a heck of a lot. The bike was turning really well but I lost the front a couple of times and we couldn’t really understand why. We tried a setting that helped front stability but the turning was much worse. We need to work on getting it back tomorrow by finding the right balance. Anyway it is nice to be back in Europe and working under ‘normal’ conditions, with this great weather. It felt good to have to use my dark visor again! Hopefully it will stay like this because I’m sure we can make the right changes to the bike tonight and make lots of progress tomorrow."

Jorge Lorenzo – Fiat Yamaha – 4th in 1’40.441
“It’s nice to be back in Spain and in the sunshine, but I am a bit disappointed about the day. I had a problem at the start with my helmet and we were delayed to go out on track. Once I got started I felt good with the soft Bridgestone tire, but when we tried the hard one later we had a few problems and the bike didn’t feel completely stable. Tomorrow we need to come back to a different setting and I hope things will be better.”

Chris Vermeulen – Rizla Suzuki – 8th in 1'41.063
"It's been good to come back to Jerez, because it's a track that we tested at not so long ago so getting up to speed was quite quick for everyone. We had the two bikes set up a little bit different to try a couple of different things geometry wise. Basically it was to help with front feeling - which I struggled a bit with at the test here - and we definitely took a step forward. We have the same compound tires this weekend as we did at the test and at the moment they seem to be working a bit different. I think the most important thing is to make the tires last the race distance and keep them in a reasonable condition, so that is what we are going to be working on tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be able to do that and have some good speed for qualifying and the race!"

Mika Kallio - Pramac Racing - 14th in 1'41.584
"Not a happy day for us. We started with two different set up on the two bikes: one like Motegi and the other like the one used during last March winter test. We have found some complications that didn't allow us to be fast enough, but we remain trustful to be able to improve tomorrow. I didn't manage to use the soft rear tire and maybe also this didn't allow me to lower my lap times."

Niccolò Canepa - Pramac Racing - 18th in 1'42.063
"Today we started with a totally different solution on the bike and I found my self at ease during the firsts laps. My body structure is completely different compared to the other Ducati riders and today, working a lot with the weight balance on the bike, I think we have found the right way to follow. I am very trustful that tomorrow we will be able to improve so that we could start from a good position in the race."

Nicky Hayden - Ducati Marlboro - 17th in 1’41.916
“It wasn’t a particularly great first session for us but it’s not as bad as it looks either. The bike is a little different from how we had it at the test but not hugely so. We didn’t have a great set-up at the test so we’ve made a couple of changes and tried the hard tire on both bikes just to try and understand it a bit more. I’ve struggled with the harder tire recently so we just stuck at it today and tried to make the bike work with it. The lap time isn’t what we were looking for at this stage but my feeling with the bike was actually okay. I was a bit unsure about how I might feel physically and to be honest I didn’t feel great out there but it is possible to ride. We’ve got a few things to talk about with the team and hopefully tomorrow I can make a big step. I just need to be faster!”