Repsol Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso set the fifth fastest time in first practice for the TIM TT Assen today as round six of the MotoGP World Championship got underway. The 24 year-old Italian, who lies second in the title standings coming to the Netherlands, is confident that with improvements to the feeling from the front end of his RC212V tomorrow he can qualify well in the afternoon session and continue his impressive start to the 2010 season.
“This was a decent first session and a positive start to the weekend. Of course we still need to improve things and make up some time but I think we can do this tomorrow,” said Dovizioso. “We had some movement on the front end entering turns and also mid-corner and we need to sort this out in order to improve. It’s an issue that I’ve had already this season so we’re familiar with it.”
He continued: “Today’s session was just the start to the weekend and I think we’ll see the real pace that we can run in tomorrow’s two sessions. We used the harder option Bridgestone tyres for our fast laps today, so there’s room for improvement on the softer ones tomorrow. The modifications to the track are good fun to ride although maybe it’s a little bit dangerous if a bike goes down in the right hander because it could come back onto the track in the next corner. Still, it was a positive session today and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
Factory Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa was right behind Dovizioso in sixth as the pair made the first inroads into setting-up their RC212Vs for the fast and sinuous Assen circuit. Though the 24 year-old Spaniard and his crew initially went the wrong way with suspension settings for this circuit, they too expect improvements tomorrow after the data they collected is analysed and setting adjustments are decided upon.
“We’re in sixth place which isn’t actually so bad considering that we initially chose the wrong direction with our suspension settings for this track,” explained Pedrosa. “Basically our set-up was too soft today and this cost us time - especially in Turn 1 - which meant that our lap times suffered quite a lot. So it’s not the ideal start to the race meeting that we were hoping for, but it looks like the weather is going to be stable for the rest of the weekend so we have time to improve things a lot.”
Eager to move on from his finish of eighth at Silverstone, Pedrosa continued: “We need a good result at this race to put Silverstone behind us and because last year I crashed here. The change to the circuit is good and that corner is now very fast - perhaps 270km/h in fifth gear. I’m confident that tomorrow we can do a better job than today and move forward.”
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