Shuhei Aoyama on the provisional front row
Third place for the Repsol rider in the MotoGP class after effective practice sessions. Nicky Hayden is eighth and Aoyama takes a place on the provisional front row of the 250cc as well Bad weather played the leading role in Jerez today with clouds, wind and constantly threatening rain that had already fallen at daybreak leaving the track very slippery in the morning.

The asphalt dried however along the day allowing all riders to perform the first practice of the season under good conditions, with an excellent result for Dani Pedrosa. The Repsol rider took the third place on the time sheets after the two free practice sessions carried out by the MotoGP class, thus having a spectacular debut. The real value of Pedrosa`s classification is actually not the time set, which is very close to the times set by Rossi and Capirossi, but in the constantly good times set along the day.

Team mate Nicky Hayden was eighth after making major changes to the settings compared to the last private tests carried out on this track. The North American rider is however hopeful because he has managed to solve some of the grip problems he had been having during the past weeks and hopes to be able to take a place among the top six riders during the timed session to be held tomorrow. The overall result is good and encouraging for the Repsol Honda Team at the season start that despite the bad weather gathered a remarkable crowd of fans at the circuit.

In the 250cc class, Japanese rider Shuhei Aoyama also managed to take a place on the provisional front row after setting the third fastest time. Aoyama, highly efficient during the preseason tests, rode, just as Pedrosa, at a very constant pace throughout the day, clearly improving the times set in previous weeks. Things went not as good for Sebastián Porto. Very disappointed with his fifteenth place, Port will make some changes in the settings tomorrow to be able to get a position appropriate to his aspirations. Young 125cc British rider Bradley Smith, finished the timed practice session as twenty-fourth fastest.


Nicky Hayden (MotoGP) : "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 (MotoGP) : "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 the racing in front of the Spanish fans and I hope I can ride well over the next two days."

Shuhei Aoyama (250cc) : "Well, I`m happy with the position, but not with the times set. It rained this morning, so the track wasn`t in good conditions and it was really slippery. I think that we have all laps almost one and a half second slower than during the tests two weeks ago, so I think that the times will improve significantly tomorrow. We`ve tested a new setting today that worked much better than two weeks ago, so we`ll have to try to improve our times tomorrow again."

Sebastián Porto (250cc) : "Well, it`s clear that things did not work out well. We have changed the configuration of the bike a lot since the last tests, but this morning things became complicated because it rained, and in the afternoon we didn`t do many laps, so we were not able to really verify if it`s been better or not. Now we have to continue working. We have tomorrow left and the most important is to recover or at least to achieve the best with what we

Shuhei Aoyama
have. The lap times have been rather slow today, but we`re not in a good place, that`s clear, and we have to work and try tomorrow to get at least the position we had achieved during the tests."

Bradley Smith (125cc) : "It`s been quite good. It`s been difficult, of course, you always give 100% and it`s disappointing to be 24th and 25th, but I hope things to improve. We will keep on trying and we`ll see what we can do. You always focus on what you`re doing but I watch the others, and look at how they brake and things like that. But once in the race, there will be more people around, so I hope to get used to lapping with so many riders. The track was wet this morning, we rode with wet settings and we spent some time testing some tyres. I went off-track in this session while testing some things because it was windy and we were working to try to make the front end stable, because the bike went up in the corners. We managed to solve it somehow, but fortunately we still have tomorrow to keep on improving."

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