Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa was the fastest in Free Practice 1 at the Brickyard.
The first MotoGP practice session of the weekend started under full wet conditions at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway and it was Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa who proved to be the fastest. The Spanish rider set a time of 1:51.507 early in the hour-long session when the track was perhaps at its wettest.
This was a very good start to the weekend and in wet conditions we are looking in good shape," commented Pedrosa. "It was raining for the whole session and we had good grip, even though there were some big patches of standing water around the track. I felt confident and was able to push hard - and actually it's been a quite long time since I've felt that confident in wet conditions and been happy to push to the maximum."
Second-quickest was Ducati’s
Nicky Hayden courtesy of his 1:51.662 lap time set at the very end of Friday’s session. Both Hayden and his temporary teammate, Mika Kallio, put in the most amount of laps (24) around Indy’s 2.62-mile road course.
"It feels good to be near the top again," said Hayden. "The bike felt pretty good from the beginning and after trying something new on the other bike, which didn't work, we went back to the standard setting and went from there. The track was really tricky because there were sections with a lot of standing water and others where the grip was amazing - you had to be really on your toes."
Fiat Yamaha's Valentino Rossi slotted in third position despite only putting in 16-laps in order to preserve his M1's engine.
Fiat Yamaha’s
Valentino Rossi, was third-fastest and like Hayden, set his best time of 1:51.814 on his final lap. Rossi’s teammate Jorge Lorenzo was a scant 0.08-seconds behind Rossi good for fourth position.
"I sat out the first 20 minutes in order to save the engine mileage," Rossi said. "And by the time I went out it was very wet. Unfortunately the track wasn't draining so well where there is new asphalt and in some corners it was quite dangerous with standing water and a risk of aquaplaning. This weather was unlucky but it wasn't such a bad session and our pace and setting in the wet was quite good. We were able to improve the balance of the bike and if the conditions are like this again then we have some ideas to improve further."
After sitting P2 for the majority of the session, San Carlo Gresini Honda’s Alex De Angelis was knocked back to fifth spot with the youngster unable to best his fastest lap set on Lap 9 of 22. James Toseland finished sixth in front of Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capriossi and his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 teammate Colin Edwards. The other Repsol Honda of Andrea Dovizioso and Hayate’s Marco Melandri rounded out the top-ten.
Red Bull Indianapolis GP MotoGP Free Practice 1 Results:
Ducati's Nick Hayden sits P2 courtesy of his last lap flyer.
1. Dani Pedrosa, Honda
2. Nicky Hayden,
Ducati
3. Valentino Rossi, Yamaha
4. Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha
5. Alex De Angelis,
Honda
6. James Toseland, Yamaha
7. Loris Capirossi, Suzuki
8. Colin Edwards,
Yamaha
9. Andrea Dovizioso, Honda
10. Marco Melandri,
Kawasaki
11. Mika Kallio, Ducati
12. Chris Vermeulen,
Suzuki
13. Randy De Puniet, Honda
14. Toni Elias, Honda
15. Aleix Espargaro, Ducati
