A sun-soaked Laguna
Seca welcomed the MotoGP paddock to American soil
yesterday, where Jorge Lorenzo looked on good form
to finish the opening session in second and his Fiat
Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi made a solid start
for sixth position. The Fiat Yamaha M1s are running
in a special livery here to celebrate the
forthcoming launch of the Fiat 500 car in the United
States, which features the faces of 500 fans on both
bikes and the riders' leathers.
Lorenzo has had an eventful time at this track in his
two previous visits here but yesterday was much more
routine, as the 23-year-old quickly found a good rhythm
and was on the pace from the start. He finished the day
just 0.233 seconds off leader Casey Stoner but he admits
he needs to make some adjustments to his riding style
today to better suit the peculiar nature of this track.After
his sensational return from injury in Germany, Rossi
found he was in a little bit more pain at this track,
especially in the braking area before the infamous
Corkscrew. Aside from his physical worries the World
Champion was happy with his first day's work and is
confident that the information he and his team gathered
yesterday will help them to climb the order today.
Jorge Lorenzo
"This was a good first
practice and everything came quite easily; we didn't
find any big problems and I was able to be at the front
from the start. That said it looks like Casey is very
strong here and we will have to work hard to catch him!
I think I need to make some small changes to my riding
style tomorrow rather than big changes to the bike
setting and hopefully this will help us to find a few
tenths and make sure we can fight on Sunday. A lot can
change and I hope we can improve some more tomorrow."
Valentino Rossi
"This track is a bit
harder for me than Sachsenring and I have more pain than
I had there, mostly in the ankle but also in the
shoulder at the breaking point before the Corkscrew.
Aside from that I think we can be better tomorrow; we
haven't put everything together yet to be at our full
potential on the track and if we had a few more laps
today we could have been a bit further up. We used the
hard tyre at the end but the track was maybe a bit dirty
for it. [Today] we will try the soft tyre also in the
front. I like the special livery; it's something
different and fun. [Today] I will have a helmet to go
with it!"
Wilco Zeelenberg -
Team Manager, Lorenzo
"The practice was fine
for us, we had no major problems and we just tried
different things between the two bikes; clearly one
setting was better than the other. We need a bit more
time because we need to improve the balance between the
front and rear, but we know that it's very difficult to
have everything perfect at this track because the
corkscrew is very unusual! Second place is a good
performance for the opening day and we're only two
tenths off Stoner so we are happy and will try to
improve more."
Davide Brivio -
Team Manager, Rossi
"We tried some different
settings and both Bridgestone tyres in this session. It
wasn't too bad but now we need to put things together
and find the best way forward. Physically Valentino
seems to be not too bad, even if he has a bit more
trouble here than in Germany, but we have to wait and
see how he is with two sessions instead of one. We
finished the session with the hard tyre because we
wanted to try some things and this probably wasn't the
best way to get a fast lap time, but it's important to
try all the combinations and hopefully the information
we gathered will enable us to be faster."
