Rizla Suzuki racer Loris Capirossi had a constructive first practice session at the San Marino and Riviera di Rimini Grand Prix today.
Capirossi (P10, 1’36.277, 29 laps) was able to complete a lot of work with his crew as they compared his two Suzuki GSV-Rs and evaluated both compounds of Bridgestone rear tyres around the 4,226m Misano circuit. Capirossi was pleased with the day’s work as he prepares for Sunday’s race which will see him compete in his 200th premier class motorcycle race, on either a 500cc two-stroke bike or a modern day four-stroke MotoGP machine.
Álvaro Bautista (P17, 1’37.900, 27 laps) had quite a contrasting day compared to his team-mate. He struggled to generate the rear grip from his GSV-R as he tried to come to terms with the Misano circuit. He made small steps with the set-up of his bike through the session, but will be looking to make marked improvements tomorrow as he continues to prepare for Sunday’s race.
Today’s practice was held in warm and sunny conditions with air temperatures reaching 25ºC and track temperatures getting up to 37ºC. Spaniard Dani Pedrosa on his factory Honda recorded the fastest time of the day.
Rizla Suzuki has one more practice session tomorrow morning to prepare for the qualifying session in the afternoon and Sunday’s 28-lap race. The 12th round of the season gets underway at 14.00hrs local time (12.00hrs GMT) on Sunday 5th September.
Loris Capirossi:
“It has been a long time since we have had a Friday like that. I am not happy about the position, but I am very happy with the bike today. We did a really good job with the bike and didn’t have to make too many changes from the original setting, but what we did change also seemed to work well. The base settings for the electronics was also better today, it’s not perfect and we still need to do a bit more work on it, but for now it is fine. I am happy for the whole team because it has been a much better day and we hope that we can keep this up for the whole weekend. We need decent weather on Saturday and Sunday and if we get that I am sure we can have a good weekend.”
Álvaro Bautista:
“It has not been a good practice for me because I have had a problem entering the corner as I didn’t have a lot of rear grip and I cannot enter as quickly as I want to. I started with the harder compound rear tyre, but on the second run I used the softer option, because with the harder one it was almost impossible to get any grip. We tried to do some changes in practice, but the improvements were not that big, so we will need to work on the data for the rest of the day to find a solution to that and hope we can work it out for tomorrow.”
Stuart Shenton – Loris Capirossi’s Crew Chief:
“That was a good session for us today and we have got a lot of work done. Loris got off to a good start and that set the tone for the rest of the session. We were able to compare both bikes, and assess the two rear tyre options, and from that it looks like we have a good direction for the rest of the weekend. All-in-all it has not been a bad start to the weekend here at Misano.”
GP Aperol di San Marino e Riviera di Rimini Free Practice Classification:
1. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 1’34.772: 2. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) +0.612: 3. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) +0.672: 4. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) +0.767:5. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) +1.062: 10. LORIS CAPIROSSI (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +1.505: 17. ÁLVARO BAUTISTA (RIZLA SUZUKI MOTOGP) +3.128:
