Jorge Lorenzo played down his impressive return to MotoGP action in Brno this afternoon. Back after a two-week summer break, the 23-year-old topped the timesheets with a best time of 1.57.215, comfortably defeating Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa by 0.541s. But the Fiat Yamaha rider refused to get carried away as he goes in search of a seventh win in ten races in Sunday’s 22-lap Czech Republic Grand Prix. Today’s lap times were over 0.6s away from lap record pace and any chance of improving times in opening practice were thwarted when light rain started to fall in the final ten minutes.

Lorenzo, who leads Pedrosa by a massive 72 points going into the second half of the season, said: “It is better to have this advantage than to be half-a-second behind the first rider. But it is not a very important thing because we are still far from the record pace of this track and tomorrow I think the pace will be more or less in 56.5 and 56.3. Most of the riders could improve their lap times at the end in the last ten minutes but it was raining and we had to stop.”
 
Lorenzo was still content with his early pace as only Pedrosa, factory Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi and Italian Andrea Dovizioso were able to lap inside of a second of the double world 250GP champion
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Planning overnight changes, Lorenzo said: “We will try and make the bike lighter for the change of direction to improve the agility, and this is the main thing we have to improve.”
 
Heroic Randy de Puniet has vowed to ride on and contest Sunday’s Czech Republic MotoGP race despite nearly suffering what would have been a disastrous crash during opening practice today. Making a stunning comeback in Brno today just 26 days after breaking his left leg in two places at the recent Sachsenring clash in Germany, the Frenchman set the 16th-quickest time. The 29-year-old, a 2011 target for Suzuki’s factory squad, posted a best time of 2.00.184 to finish 2.969s adrift of Jorge Lorenzo’s Fiat Yamaha YZR-M1 in first position. But the LCR Honda rider, who only passed a medical to ride 24 hours earlier, came close to a high-side crash after just three laps of this afternoon’s session.
 
“I knew that it would not be easy so this is exactly what I was expecting,” said De Puniet. “Everybody thinks I came back too early but I feel fit, even though my leg aches especially when changing gear. However, I think I can improve my physical condition session by session and hopefully the pain will be less and less. Today I did not get any painkillers but unfortunately I suffered a small high-side after a few laps and hurt my leg on the bike. That was very painful! The guys moved the shift pedal to make me more comfortable and I am confident we can improve step by step.”
 
After his near crash this afternoon De Puniet needed two injections in the circuit medical center, but insisted he will be fit to start Sunday’s 22-lap clash.
 
Casey Stoner’s hopes of ending his long MotoGP victory drought hit trouble in Brno today as the Australian was left languishing down in seventh-place on the practice leaderboard. The 24-year-old was a massive 1.317s adrift of quickest rider Jorge Lorenzo with a best time of 1.58.532, leaving him behind factory Ducati teammate Nicky Hayden and fellow American Colin Edwards. The 2007 world champion hasn’t won a race since his triumph in Malaysia last October and he couldn’t hide his disappointment today having finished so far off the best pace.
 
“You can never be happy being that far off the pace, but we seem to be losing consistently through each sector, particularly T1 and T2. We still need to improve quite a lot. We more or less know what we want out of the bike but it is just not giving it to us at the moment. I’m a little bit disappointed to be so far off the pace. From the first exit the bike didn’t feel great and we couldn’t really improve much more than what we started out with. We got the bike feeling better but not performing better. We got it working easier on the bumps and in the braking points but the lap time didn’t improve much at all. I’m disappointed with progress in that session.”

Explaining the issues that left him struggling 0.8s behind Dani Pedrosa in second position, Stoner said he could not get his factory Ducati GP10 to turn. He added: “Today I struggled a lot with grip from the middle to the exit of the corner. I just can’t seem to get the bike hooked up. We need to get the bike turning a lot better in the middle of the corners because all of them are very long here. I’m having to enter the corner very early because I can’t get the bike to turn the corner. If I want to enter the corner late I end up being three meters wide in the middle. I’m losing too much time in the middle of the turn and then I’ve got no acceleration on the exit.”
 
Casey Stoner doubts Ducati will be able to roll out a raft of new parts to help bring its factory GP10 into winning contention in MotoGP. And Stoner reckons he’s not expecting the Bologna factory to have a batch of upgrades available to test in Brno on Monday.
 
“These aren’t things that can just be bolted on and fixed,” Stoner said. As we know from the past, unfortunately Ducati is a very small company and it struggles to put parts out there quick enough. Whether we have some new parts that will help us for the rest of the season, I doubt it. We’ve got to work with what we’ve got and try and improve that situation.”
 
Stoner said if any new parts were available to try for 2011, he believed Ducati would ask for his opinion, even though he will ride for Repsol Honda next season.
 
Meanwhile, Yamaha will ban Valentino Rossi from riding its prototype 2011 factory YZR-M1 machine at Monday’s Brno test because of his big money move to Ducati.
 
“If there are some parts for 2011 I won’t be surprised if I’ll be testing them as well. I’m still working for Ducati and I’m still riding my butt off and I will continue to do the best job I can for them.”

Valentino Rossi’s impressive recovery from a broken right leg continued in Brno today when the reigning world champion ended opening MotoGP practice with the third-quickest time. The Italian suffered a compound fracture of his right tibia in early June and despite being only 65 percent fit he was only beaten by Spanish duo Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa in the Czech Republic today. The 31-year-old, who will confirm his move to Ducati’s factory squad on Sunday after the 22-lap race, said: “I'm happy because my condition is a lot better than Germany and Laguna Seca, although I have some pain and lose some power because this track has many right corners and I have problems on my right side. I'm not at the maximum and have some pain in my shoulder on the brakes but I'm okay. We did some good work today and I was fast and we have a good setting, but we need to try something different tomorrow which will be good if we have good weather."
 
Rossi said the only issue with his recovering right leg was a lack of strength when changing direction and when he needed to put force through the footpeg to steer his factory Yamaha YZR-M1. The nine-time world champion, who won his very first Grand Prix at Brno on an Aprilia 125 in 1996, added: “When I have to change direction and have to push on the footpeg with the right leg I have some pain."

Swiss tuner Eskil Suter will not go ahead with a planned test of a new MotoGP project powered by a tuned BMW engine at next week’s Brno test in the Czech Republic. Suter has been working on a new 1000cc MotoGP concept machine in preparation for new rules that will be introduced in 2012. The premier class will allow four-stroke four-cylinder machines up to 1000cc with a maximum cylinder bore of 81mm to compete in MotoGP in 2012. Suter had planned to test the bike during Monday’s test session against a crop of current 800cc machines competing in MotoGP. A first public unveiling of the new bike, scheduled to take place in Brno this weekend, has also been cancelled.
 
Suter, who has a large number of teams using their chassis in the new Moto2 world championship, said the Brno test had been cancelled because it was obvious that the new bike would not be allowed to compete in 2011, with the grid remaining exclusively for 800cc bikes only next season.
 
“There was no sense to rush the project when we can’t race until 2012,” Suter stated. “It gives us more time to work on the bike before we plan to test next month.”
 
Suter will now show the bike for the first time at the Misano round in early September. The 1000cc rules for 2012 are a desperate attempt by Dorna to bolster dwindling grid numbers in MotoGP. It is hoped the new rules will encourage Aprilia and BMW to join the series while opening the door for private teams to run production-derived engines in prototype chassis to save on the high costs of leasing machinery from the likes of Honda, Yamaha and Ducati.
 
Hiroshi Aoyama is planning to gauge his fitness by returning to action during Monday’s MotoGP test session at the Brno circuit. The Japanese rider has been sidelined with a broken back that he suffered in a massive high-side crash for the British MotoGP race at Silverstone on June 20. The Interwetten Honda rider has been undergoing intensive treatment at his Barcelona base ever since and he will assess his progress by riding his RC212V machine in the Czech Republic test.
The 28-year-old has been wearing a body brace ever since the Silverstone accident.
 
“I feel very well and I am happy with the improvements of my injury in the last couple of weeks,” said Aoyama. “Yesterday my doctors did another X-ray and the healing process of the broken bone is really good. I can move my arms and legs like before the crash. I just need to be careful with my back. I started training a couple of weeks ago and doing cycling, swimming and going to the gym. It is improving step by step and I am almost back to normal again. I can't wait to be back on my bike. If you have to watch all these races on TV, it is depressing and I want to come back as soon as possible. But when I will ride my bike again in a Grand Prix I will decide after the test on Monday."
 
The next race after Brno is a second trip across the Atlantic for the Indianapolis round on August 29.
 
Ben Spies will be given a chance to test an early 2011 factory Yamaha prototype after this weekend’s Brno MotoGP race. The Texan will be handed an opportunity to complete laps on the new bike during Monday’s test session in the Czech Republic. Yamaha has flown only one new YZR-M1 from Japan to Europe and the majority of the testing duty will fall to world champion elect Jorge Lorenzo.
 
But with Valentino Rossi banned from evaluating the bike because of his big money switch to rival Ducati, Yamaha will take the opportunity to let Spies complete a few laps for his early impressions of next year’s YZR-M1 contender.
 
A Yamaha source said: “Ben won’t have anything new to test for Tech 3 at all, so he will get the chance to ride something else. It’s an easy way for Yamaha to get some early input from him for next year.”
 
The 26-year-old reigning World Superbike champion said: “Whatever they tell me to ride, I'll ride and obviously there have been rumors that there will be something in Brno. I might take a few laps on something but I don't know. I haven't been told 100 percent.”
 
Monday’s test though will largely depend on the weather, with forecasts currently predicting showers. Rossi’s move to Ducati, revealed at the end of June, will officially be confirmed in Brno this weekend.
 
Suzuki will roll out a raft of new parts at the Brno test on Monday in a bid to get its struggling factory GSV-R competitive in MotoGP. The 2010 V4 contender has been left woefully off the pace so far in the opening half of the season, and Loris Capirossi and Alvaro Bautista have only scored six top-ten finishes between them in nine races.
 
Suzuki boss Paul Denning has revealed that Suzuki has flown in a new chassis, engine, electronics and aerodynamics package to test on Monday.
 
“We’ve got three days of work to do in six hours. We’ll have a lot of stuff. Some will be 2011 testing and some will be short-term stuff to be introduced this year. But some is to understand the direction for 2011.”
 
The Monday test is one of only two days of testing available during the season, and Suzuki has found it difficult to comply with new engine restrictions introduced to slash costs in 2010. Each rider is only allowed to use six engines for the entire 18-race campaign, but reliability issues have beset Suzuki in 2010. They will be given special dispensation to run more engines when the Grand Prix Commission meets during this weekend’s Brno race.

At the halfway stage of the season, Capirossi has only two new engines remaining and rookie Bautista just one. Both will have an extra three engines added to their allocation for the remaining nine races as it looked certain that Capirossi and Bautista would be penalized for needing to use extra engines. The punishment is starting from pit lane ten seconds after the start of a race.
 
International Race Teams Association boss Mike Trimby said: “It’s a proposal from the MSMA (Motorcycle Sport Manufacturers Association) for 2010 only. It doesn’t seem a good step to change the rules halfway through the year, but likewise it is not good to have bikes starting from pit lane too.”