Following heavy downpours over night, riders were not able to take to the track immediately at 10am local time, however gradually filtered out around 11:30am. And by the 2pm mid-point it was Pedrosa who was the man to beat with a 2’00.866, albeit with times slower than yesterday. The Spaniard’s aim for the day is to put in a race-distance run, whilst his teammate Marc Márquez, who ended the morning in third, is continuing to adapt to the tyres and suspension.
Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo, lying narrowly in second, is continuing his methodical approach by looking to complete long runs on both the medium and harder option tyre, as teammate Valentino Rossi lies in seventh as he keeps working on rear tyre grip.
The satellite RC213V of GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s Álvaro Bautista was going well this morning, with the Spaniard placing it fourth as he seeks faster corner entry, just ahead of LCR Honda MotoGP’s Stefan Bradl. Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Cal Crutchlow, who yesterday scorched to third in the table, could not repeat that feat, as he placed his M1 sixth whilst working further on set-up.
Eighth spot went to Ducati Team’s Nicky Hayden followed by his teammate Andrea Dovizioso and the Pramac Racing Ducati of Andrea Iannone. Ducati has cited it is pleased with the results yielded from the new fuel tank, and believes it is heading in the right path set-up wise. Splitting Iannone’s teammate Ben Spies from the Ducati trio is Tech 3’s Bradley Smith, whose riding-style learning curve continues, with Ducati test rider Michele Pirro in tow. Pirro crashed just before the mid-day point, though walked away unscathed.
Power Electronics Aspar duo Aleix Espargaró and Randy de Puniet led the CRTs in 14th and 15th place respectively, ahead of Yamaha test rider Katsuyuki Nakasuga and Avintia Blusens’ Héctor Barberá. Cardion AB Motoracing’s Karel Abraham finished ahead of an improving Colin Edwards on his NGM Mobile Forward Racing machine, Avintia’s Hiroshi Aoyama, NGM’s Claudio Corti, Yamaha test rider Wataru Yoshikawa and HRC test rider Takumi Takahashi.
Paul Bird Motorsport’s Yonny Hernandez ended the morning 24th, with his teammate Michael Laverty garage-bound as the team continues to work on the in-house PBM bike’s electronics. Gresini’s Bryan Staring was up next, whilst Came IodaRacing Project’s Danilo Petrucci, who had a small crash in the morning, and his teammate Lucas Pesek round out the field. Both Ioda riders are running with the old 2012 engine.
Source: http://www.motogp.com