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Fiat Yamaha Team rider Valentino Rossi
rounded off the first day of the Grand Prix of Catalunya in
positive fashion today, setting the second fastest time of
the day on his penultimate lap as temperatures climbed into
the thirties at Montmelo. Fresh from a spectacular victory
at his home-race in Italy last Sunday, Rossi and his team
arrived here on a high and wasted no time in getting down to
business this morning as they seek their first back-to-back
set of victories since their Mugello-Barcelona double last
year.
Team-mate Colin Edwards finished the day
slightly further down the order in eighth, one of many
riders who did not better their time from the morning
session. After a difficult weekend in Mugello however, when
he failed to find a comfortable bike set-up all weekend, the
Texan is feeling much more positive about this race. The
team still have some work to do tomorrow but Edwards is
confident of further improvements and a return to the strong
qualifying form he has shown at most races so far this
season.
Rossi's lap of 1'43.313 was good enough
to top the time sheets in this afternoon's second free
practice session but the overall number one spot today went
to Dani Pedrosa, who set a lap of 1'43.099 in this morning's
cooler session. With twelve riders inside a second today
tomorrow's hour-long qualifying session looks like being a
close one when the action kicks off at 1345 local time.
Valentino Rossi:
"We've made a good start to the weekend and my bike is
already going very well. This morning was okay but then this
afternoon especially we made a lot of steps forward with the
tyres and with the setting. We've got a few different
options for our tyre choice and we seem to have good grip in
the long corners, which is very important at this track. Now
tomorrow we will continue with our work and make a final
decision about tyres.
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Fresh from a spectacular victory at his home-race in
Italy last Sunday (above), Valentino Rossi and his
team arrived here on a high and wasted no time in
getting down to business this morning as they seek
their first back-to-back set of victories since
their Mugello-Barcelona double last year.
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Colin Edwards finished the day slightly further down
the order in eighth, one of many riders who did not
better their time from the morning session. |
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"I
found a strong rhythm straight away today and this afternoon
I put in a consistent run of laps - almost a half-race
distance - and things are already feeling good for Sunday.
We still have some improvements to make with the setting and
hopefully with a few modifications we'll be going even
better tomorrow. However it's a long race and if it's as hot
as this then it's going to be a battle of physical strength
for everyone!"
Colin Edwards: "My position doesn't really show it but
actually we're not in bad shape today, considering where we
were this time a week ago in Italy! We're missing a bit of
traction but we've got some ideas to work on overnight and
tomorrow which will hopefully help us in this department.
Our forte is entry and corner speed so we'll work on honing
those for this track and hopefully that will give us an
advantage. As for tyres, nothing's really jumping out at us
today but we've got three or four that feel okay so with
some more laps we should be in a better position to make a
decision for Sunday. Anyway I'm feeling a lot happier here
than I was in Mugello and with any luck we can be back in
fine form for qualifying tomorrow."
Davide Brivio: "We've
made a very good start with Valentino and it seems he's in
good shape already. Luckily the weather is better here and
so we were able to do a good day's testing and get some
helpful information regarding tyres. Tomorrow we will look
to fine-tune the setting and make our final tyre choice, but
we're already at a good level. Colin is a bit further back
but the times are very close and we have some good ideas
about what's needed tomorrow to bring him even closer to the
top."
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