Jerez : Day One – Repsol Honda
The Repsol Honda Team made a strong start on the first day of practice at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain as the 2006 MotoGP season got under way today.
The team`s new signing, Dani Pedrosa, finished the one-hour afternoon session in a promising third place just 0.185s off the fastest time, confirming the potential he`s shown during a long winter of testing.

The 20-year-old Spanish 250cc World Champion was keen not to get carried away after his impressive showing, but his performance certainly excited the legions of Spanish fans who will continue to flock to 4.42km (2.75 mile) Jerez circuit this weekend.

After the morning session was spoiled by a damp track, Nicky Hayden finished in a strong 8th place this afternoon, just 0.663 seconds behind the leading time, confirming the progress the team is making with the new-for-2006 RC211V. The 24-year-old American star, who enters his fourth season with Repsol Honda, is developing the new bike as Pedrosa concentrates on his conversion to the MotoGP class on an evolution of last year`s factory bike.

The race weekend continues tomorrow with the one-hour qualifying session ahead of Sunday`s season-opening race which begins at 2pm, local time.

Nicky Hayden 1m 42.276s - Position: 8th
“It`s definitely good to be back rolling. This morning was like a false alarm! We got ready to go but couldn`t really do any laps. We were here just last week but today we had a completely different set- up on the bike to find some grip, and it seemed to be a little bit better, but it`s not the big answer to all our problems. We`re trying to get the back of the bike hooked up in the long corners, because everywhere it feels good except jumping off some of those second and third gear corners. But we`re moving in the right direction and we`ve got some stuff to try tomorrow.”

Dani Pedrosa 1m 41.798s - Position: 3rd
“The hour went by very quickly for me.
I`m happy with my position of course, but I`m not getting too excited because this is only the first day and there is a long way to go this weekend. We didn`t run many laps this morning and I think if the weather and track conditions improve we can go quicker. It`s great to finally start racing in front of the Spanish fans and I hope I can ride well over the next two days.”

Makoto Tanaka – Repsol Honda Team Manager
“I think all the Spanish fans are very happy with Dani today! He was going very well on his last lap, and if he hadn`t come up behind another bike, I think he should have been at the top of the timesheet. Nicky had some difficulties with set-up at the last test but this time he had some new items on the bike and we`ve made some progress. We still have some work to do on Nicky`s bike but we`re heading in the right direction and we`re optimistic about this weekend.”

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