Dovizioso, who is chasing a fourth consecutive podium finish in Sunday's 32-lap race, finished with a best time of 1.22.021 that kept him fifth position and he was the fastest non-factory rider to lap the challenging Laguna Seca track, which features the jaw-dropping Corkscrew section.
British rider Crutchlow also enjoyed a satisfactory start to his preparations for round 10 of the 2012 MotoGP World Championship. Crutchlow had finished just 0.063s behind Dovizioso this morning and he was pushing hard to improve his pace in the second session when he fell heavily at Turn 10. He returned to the track for the final 10 minutes and he improved his lap time to a 1.22.258 that put him in sixth position on the combined leader board.
Andrea Dovizioso
"It has been a positive start to the weekend, but the gap to the front is quite big. The second session was a bit strange because after the red flag there was a lot of traffic on track in the final stages and it was hard to get a clear lap in. I could have possibly done the same time as Ben (Spies) but certainly not the low 21s the top three were doing. My aim for this afternoon was to get closer to Ben and we managed that. I was almost 0.7s behind him this morning but only 0.3s this afternoon, so that is a good step forward."
Cal Crutchlow
"Today didn't really go according to plan because this afternoon I had a silly crash. It was my own fault and we have to look at the data to fully understand what happened. I didn't feel I did anything different in that corner to other laps but we will have to check. I've got a small cut on my right leg but fortunately nothing worse because it was a fast crash. I am still reasonably happy because I was able to go back out again and gain a bit of time and in both sessions I was inside the top six, so we are pretty competitive. We need to calm the bike down a little bit but I will sit down with my crew tonight and come up with a plan that I'm sure will help me stay challenging inside the top six for the rest of the weekend."
Press release courtesy of Monster Yamaha Tech 3.
Source: http://www.motogp.com