Ducati riders Hayden, Rossi finish sixth and eighth on first practice day of Japanese GP – MotoGP
Ducati riders Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi have improved their pace during the first practice day for the Grand Prix of Japan.
Hayden secured sixth and Rossi came eighth in the final time sheet for the day.
The MotoGP Japanese event was originally due to be held as the third round of the season but it was forced to be postponed to being the 15th event on the calendar due to the devastating earthquake and tsunami earlier in 2011.
Hayden said, "I had fun riding the bike today, and that's important. This morning was really encouraging, because I could ride comfortably and we really didn't make many changes throughout the day. I steadily got a little bit faster, but the others made a bigger jump in the afternoon."
The Kentucky Kid has not experienced good weekends at the venue. In fact, the Ducati bike is not compatible to the layout of the circuit. The Motegi is developed as a test track with a stop and go format. This tends to put pressure on the riders and machines.
During the morning session, Hayden topped to third position in the time chart but in the afternoon's outing, he finished in the sixth position.
Hayden is likely to give some ideas to improve the braking stability of his Desmosedici GP11.1. He hopes to deliver his best performance to cheer up his team.
The Italian veteran was tenth in morning session while looking to improve his traction on the new surface of Motegi.
Rossi said, "We made progress with the bike throughout the day and as a result we improved our lap times, dropping below 1'48". The pace is still far from the top, but not bad for now. There are a number of things to resolve but we're definitely not in the situation we were at Aragon."
Rossi also stated that the conditions are not as bad as they were at Motorland Aragon. The tyre wear and lose rear end was troubling a lot in the last MotoGP event. This caused Rossi to end up in tenth position, after four riders crashed out of the race.
The crew has worked on different weight distributions which tend to put more weight on the front end. Apparently, it has improved the feel and will help the riders to perform well. Let's see if that is the case.
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