Casey Stoner has topped the first session of free practice at Indianapolis for the MotoGP class, leapfrogging over his teammate Dani Pedrosa to make it a one-two for the Repsol Hondas in FP1. Stoner and Pedrosa swapped fastest times for most of the session, while Ducati's Nicky Hayden got his home GP off to a strong start to take 3rd spot.
Ben Spies ended up in 4th, the Factory Yamaha rider a few hundredths slower than fellow American Hayden, while Stefan Bradl set the 5th fastest time on his MotoGP debut at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, sporting a brand new Red Bull livery for his LCR Honda. Alvaro Bautista put his Gresini Honda into 6th, ahead of Cal Crutchlow on the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha, Jorge Lorenzo on the Factory Yamaha and Valentino Rossi on the Ducati. Crutchlow had a big crash in the first half of the session, and came away treating his shoulder very gingerly, though the Englishman went out again to pursue a time. Hector Barbera was less fortunate, suffering a big highside at Turn 16, and being taken to the medical center. From there, he was shipped to a local hospital for suspected injuries to his vertebrae, a repeat of an injury he suffered at Motegi last year. The leg he broke at Mugello - less than five weeks ago - was fine.
Barbera's crash - and that of Crutchlow - was caused by the difficult grip conditions at Indianapolis. After very heavy overnight rain, there are still one or two damp spots and the track is very green off the racing line. As practice goes on, that should quickly improve.
Results:
Pos | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff | Diff Previous |
1 | 1 | Casey STONER | HONDA | 1'41.925 | ||
2 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | HONDA | 1'42.106 | 0.181 | 0.181 |
3 | 69 | Nicky HAYDEN | DUCATI | 1'42.472 | 0.547 | 0.366 |
4 | 11 | Ben SPIES | YAMAHA | 1'42.536 | 0.611 | 0.064 |
5 | 6 | Stefan BRADL | HONDA | 1'43.027 | 1.102 | 0.491 |
6 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | HONDA | 1'43.195 | 1.270 | 0.168 |
7 | 35 | Cal CRUTCHLOW | YAMAHA | 1'43.295 | 1.370 | 0.100 |
8 | 99 | Jorge LORENZO | YAMAHA | 1'43.312 | 1.387 | 0.017 |
9 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | DUCATI | 1'43.345 | 1.420 | 0.033 |
10 | 8 | Hector BARBERA | DUCATI | 1'43.736 | 1.811 | 0.391 |
11 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | YAMAHA | 1'43.745 | 1.820 | 0.009 |
12 | 68 | Yonny HERNANDEZ | BQR | 1'44.328 | 2.403 | 0.583 |
13 | 41 | Aleix ESPARGARO | ART | 1'44.714 | 2.789 | 0.386 |
14 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | DUCATI | 1'44.739 | 2.814 | 0.025 |
15 | 54 | Mattia PASINI | ART | 1'44.913 | 2.988 | 0.174 |
16 | 14 | Randy DE PUNIET | ART | 1'46.298 | 4.373 | 1.385 |
17 | 22 | Ivan SILVA | BQR | 1'46.332 | 4.407 | 0.034 |
18 | 51 | Michele PIRRO | FTR | 1'46.480 | 4.555 | 0.148 |
19 | 5 | Colin EDWARDS | SUTER | 1'46.520 | 4.595 | 0.040 |
20 | 15 | Steve RAPP | APR | 1'46.619 | 4.694 | 0.099 |
21 | 9 | Danilo PETRUCCI | IODA | 1'46.941 | 5.016 | 0.322 |
22 | 77 | James ELLISON | ART | 1'47.506 | 5.581 | 0.565 |
23 | 20 | Aaron YATES | BCL | 1'48.054 | 6.129 | 0.548 |
Comments
CRTs
Good to see the 2 US CRTs not too far off the pace
1:49.03 is 107% of pole, however once the track gets better and Stoner drops the hammer............
What components are inside Yates' BCL bike?
ART, Suzuki, Kawasaki? btw, Hernandez 12th! Nice one! Hayden and Spies nice too in their home! I wish them to keep it work :) For Nicky it's interesting time till the end of the season as he can push a little bit Ducati resources his way I guess. Next year four factory spec Dukes looks like it'll be four no. one riders:) Anybody knows what plans have RDP or Barbera?
Mis-identified
As far as I know Steve Rapp is on a Kawasaki not Aprilia.
In reply to Mis-identified by HRCA1
ummmm
APR isn't for aprilia. It's for Attack Performance...
Slow times
Stoner is still 2 seconds down on the fastest race time and 3 seconds down on lat years pole.
Is there any reason why Moto 2 are qualifying after MotoGP?
Surely having a big field of moto2 bikes running multiple lines arond the track would be better (and safer) for cleaning the track for MiotoGP.
Unprofessional Track
Why is that once again MotoGP is racing at Indy on a track which never gets used at any other time during the year, and as a result the surface is "green" and slick as snot offline?!? They need to add at least one full day of track time to clean the track and build up rubber so its not a one line monorail...
In reply to Unprofessional Track by Matt Warburton
The Rolex Grand-Am series was just there a few weeks ago
using the same course as MotoGP. They would have laid down plenty of rubber.
The track is "green" because of heavy overnight rain
In reply to The Rolex Grand-Am series was just there a few weeks ago by tttom
Other way around
@tttom
You're quite correct, though from my understanding the cars were circulating in the clockwise direction.
And as you said, the downpour washed away what was there anyways.
Poor Barbera
I must say racing in Indy for Barbera never seemed to me a risk worth taking but never expected it to end that bad.
Barbera manhandled like a corpse - Appalling
I was truly disgusted to see Barbera being lifted onto a stretcher like a sack of potatoes or something. One guy lifts by the shoulders, and one on his lower legs.
https://twitter.com/guicomoto/status/236561988480802817/photo/1