Submitted by David Emmett on
Casey Stoner has taken control of the timesheets in the second session of practice for the MotoGP class, the Repsol Honda rider edging out a very strong Ben Spies with just under five minutes in the session left. After some very bitter and rather lurid complaints about the slipperiness of the newly resurfaced track in the morning session - Dani Pedrosa said that whoever had done the resurfacing had done "the deal of the century" - the track condition improved enormously, the heat and the fact that 38 Moto2 bikes had spent 45 minutes cleaning the track making a huge difference. Stoner took close to three seconds off his time from the morning, 2nd-place man Ben Spies improving by nearly two-and-a-half seconds. Stoner had to face more than just the surface conditions to set the fastest time: at one point, the Australian found a groundhog in the path of his Repsol Honda, but both groundhog and motorcycle racer escaped unharmed, Stoner narrowly managing to dodge the large rodent.
The improvements in track condition were clearest from the finishing positions of Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo. The two Spaniards had been the most vocal critics of the new surface after FP1, finishing in 9th and 10th, but both men made major steps forward in the afternoon. Pedrosa just grabbed the 3rd fastest time in the dying minutes of FP2, bumping Jorge Lorenzo down into 4th. The third Repsol Honda rider ended just behind Lorenzo, Andrea Dovizioso finishing in 5th, ahead of Colin Edwards, the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha rider maintaining his position among the front runners after his 3rd fastest time in FP1.
San Carlo Gresini Honda man Marco Simoncelli was the 7th fastest rider on Friday afternoon, finishing the session just over a second slower than Casey Stoner, and just a few hundredths ahead of Marlboro Ducati rider Nicky Hayden. Rizla Suzuki's Alvaro Bautista ended FP2 in 9th, while Pramac Ducati's Randy de Puniet rounded out the top 10. After a difficult session, which went much less smoothly than the morning practice, Valentino Rossi ended the day in 11th.
Results:
Pos | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff | Diff Previous |
1 | 27 | Casey STONER | HONDA | 1'40.724 | ||
2 | 11 | Ben SPIES | YAMAHA | 1'40.918 | 0.194 | 0.194 |
3 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | HONDA | 1'41.205 | 0.481 | 0.287 |
4 | 1 | Jorge LORENZO | YAMAHA | 1'41.461 | 0.737 | 0.256 |
5 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | HONDA | 1'41.536 | 0.812 | 0.075 |
6 | 5 | Colin EDWARDS | YAMAHA | 1'41.699 | 0.975 | 0.163 |
7 | 58 | Marco SIMONCELLI | HONDA | 1'41.742 | 1.018 | 0.043 |
8 | 69 | Nicky HAYDEN | DUCATI | 1'41.789 | 1.065 | 0.047 |
9 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | SUZUKI | 1'42.231 | 1.507 | 0.442 |
10 | 14 | Randy DE PUNIET | DUCATI | 1'42.339 | 1.615 | 0.108 |
11 | 46 | Valentino ROSSI | DUCATI | 1'42.405 | 1.681 | 0.066 |
12 | 7 | Hiroshi AOYAMA | HONDA | 1'42.673 | 1.949 | 0.268 |
13 | 8 | Hector BARBERA | DUCATI | 1'42.920 | 2.196 | 0.247 |
14 | 65 | Loris CAPIROSSI | DUCATI | 1'43.034 | 2.310 | 0.114 |
15 | 35 | Cal CRUTCHLOW | YAMAHA | 1'43.085 | 2.361 | 0.051 |
16 | 24 | Toni ELIAS | HONDA | 1'43.230 | 2.506 | 0.145 |
17 | 17 | Karel ABRAHAM | DUCATI | 1'43.528 | 2.804 | 0.298 |
Comments
Colin looks good
Colin is within 1 second of Casey and ahead of a lot of factory guys. Hopefully Yamaha does not force him to retire at the end of the year.
Glad to see..
Glad to see times coming down to a respectable pace. A little rubber was just the ticket!
Rumor has it, Casey had an altercation with a squirrel...apparently it hasn't slowed him down much. :)
:)
Another altercation?!?! Did he try to punch the squirrel on the way by??? :)
lol
I see what you did there...
Nicky looks good on the GP11.1
Even without the extra bits for the front that Rossi has on his bike since Brno, Nicky is fastest Ducati rider by over half a second and "only" 1 second from the best time.
Just behind Simoncelli, half a second from Pedrosa and 3 tenths from Lorenzo, sounds like he's happy with the bike.
Just got back to Hotel from Track
News and notes from Indy, Started the morning with a hotel breakfest with most of the Moto2 teams, ran into Bradl in the parking lot. Track looks smooth aparently to smooth. The rodent that Stoner nearly hit was a very close call, and just before that he nearly lost it comming from the infield to the front straight an area where the transition may have changed with the new pavement. 13th in line at the Oakley Tent for the Spies autograph session, We told Spies about the highlight of his career was the mind f@#$%g he put on Haga in 09, Got a good laugh from him and his buddy behind him. David if your at the Q&A with Edwards tommorrow we'll be the guys at the front with a VERY VERY good Paris Hilton question for Colin!!Now off to the Colts/Packers game about 100ft from our hotel!!
One lucky rodent..
and it could have been a nasty result for Stoner too:
http://motogptipping.com/gallery/plog-content/images/various-bike-pics/o...
Deal of the Century
"The Deal of the Century" .. great comment and very funny from Pedrosa. I didn't think he had a sense of humour. Just goes to show. NASA works on reverse auctions - cheapest tender wins - maybe IMS does too. Fancy flying into space knowing that your survival depends on the product of the cheapest priced contract. Fancy tipping in at 300+ km/h knowing the same thing.
Good to hear
I was starting to get a bit worried about those riders early reports of a bad track surface.... thankfully now we can just sit back and expect to see some great racing!
Except...
Except they are still talking about extreme rates of tyre wear...
Why on earth didn't they run a couple of track days or a club race or something to get some initial rubber on the track? That seems to be what every other track does after a re-surfacing.
Brickyard is still mainly an Oval Track.
I tried looking up the history of Brickyard, it seems like they do not need to host trackdays or motorcycle club racing to make up, as they have lots of racing in the oval.
I would guess the management of the track are more in-tune with Nascar racing, but to repave the infield is still a great commitment to MotoGP....imagine the cost of re-paving plus the Dorna sanction fees. Not sure if they raise the price of MotoGP tickets this year.
Exactly Graham
As I commented on another thread. What the hell are world championship riders doing running around pointlessly, wasting an entire session just to scrub in a green track all the while risking injury due to the treacherous nature of it? Unacceptable and very poor form by the Indy organisers.