Bautista tops rainy FP2, Stoner leads the day
Álvaro Bautista topped a rainy second session at the Ricardo Tormo circuit ahead of Nicky Hayden and Randy de Puniet, with Casey Stoner leading the combined times with his fast lap from a damp FP1 session.
Wet conditions marked the second MotoGP practice outing, the slippery track requiring a fair amount of caution as the field all lapped slower than in the damp morning session. Various leaders topped the times, but the Rizla Suzuki of Bautista ultimately claimed the highest spot with a 1’47.975, two and half seconds slower than Stoner’s fast lap set in the morning.
Nicky Hayden (Ducati Team) led the field until Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) knocked him out of the lead, the American concluding three tenths off Bautista to rank second and de Puniet seven tenths off the Spaniard to place third.
Karel Abraham was fourth, the Czech rider crashing heavily on his final lap of the session, while Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) place fifth ahead of Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) and Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team).
Casey Stoner was eighth in the wet session, though claimed the fastest lap of the day in a mixed condition FP1 with a time of 1’45.513. The Australian’s tema mate Dani Pedrosa claimed the ninth spot, while Josh Hayes, the replacement rider for a recovering Colin Edwards on the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 team, placed an impressive 10 in the wet and 15th in the combined times in his first outing at the circuit and aboard a MotoGP machine.
The difficult conditions claimed riders Toni Elías (LCR Honda), who crashed out of 6th place 15 minutes into the practice, and a recovering Ben Spies (Yamaha Factory Racing) when he touched a slippery edge of the track. Hiroshi Aoyama (San Carlo Honda Gresini) also had a fall in the final four minutes of the session.
Stoner leads Pedrosa and Rossi in Valencia FP1
Stoner set a last minute fast lap to jump to the front of the pack in the first practice session of the Gran Premio Generali de la Comunitat Valenciana, ahead of team mate Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi.
The MotoGP class took to a drying track for the first practice outing of the 2011 season closer, with several tributes to Marco Simoncelli revealed as the bikes hit the asphalt. Loris Capirossi's Ducati displayed Marco Simoncelli's number 58 on his Pramac Racing machine and Hiroshi Aoyama's bike ran unbranded, instead featuring a message to his fallen team mate.
As the riders gingerly made their way around the slippery Ricardo Tormo circuit, various riders took turns at the top of the times, including Toni Elías (LCR Honda), Valentino Rossi (Ducati Team), Nicky Hayden and Capirossi. It wasn’t until the final three minutes that World Champion Casey Stoner claimed the top spot with a time of 1’45.513, with Pedrosa jumping into second, two tenths behind his Repsol Honda team mate.
The Ducati Team duo of Rossi and Hayden posted the third and fourth quickest laps, the Italian just 0.092s off Pedrosa’s pace and Hayden two tenths off his team mate.
For the first practice of his final GP, Capirossi was fifth in the field with a time of 1’46.108, ahead of Factory Yamaha’s Ben Spies. Randy de Puniet (Pramac Racing) was seventh ahead of Elias in eighth and Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) ninth. Cal Crutchlow (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) completed the top ten times with a lap one second off the lead time of Stoner.
As Colin Edwards continues to recover from the injuries he sustained in Malaysia, his replacement American superbike champion Josh Hayes made an impressive debut on a MotoGP machine, climbing as high as 13th position for not only his first experience in a GP field but also his first time at the Valencian circuit. Hayes concluded the session ahead of Jorge Lorenzo’s replacement on the Factory Yamaha team, Japanese rider Katsuyuki Nakasuga.
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