Honda’s Dani Pedrosa ended the first day of track action at the Spanish Grand Prix as the benchmark, the Spaniard topping the timesheets in both free practice sessions.
The day began wet, conditions which last year would have seen the Spaniard come unstuck thanks to the stiffer construction of Michelin tyre. Pedrosa was fastest in FP1 with a 1m51.648s and held onto top spot in the dry afternoon running with a 1m39.420s.
Keen to build on the momentum of the Americas Grand Prix, at which Pedrosa made a big step forward with bike set-up, the Honda rider tested numerous changes to his RC213V in view of Sunday’s race.
“Today we had a good day, positive in the wet and in the dry,” he said.
“We tried to do as much work as possible, even if the track conditions changed quite a lot during the day. In the afternoon there were still damp patches here and there, but I tried to be fast early because quickly finding a good pace was important.”
Pedrosa managed to test two different set-ups today, and has found which direction to go in this regard tomorrow. This will allow him to focus on evaluating race tyre options, something team-mate Marc Marquez did in FP2.
Wary of a significant rise in air and track temperature tomorrow, Pedrosa is still confident on being able to improve his already positive feeling on his RC213V.
“We had two different bike set-ups and we managed to try both of them,” he added.
“So, for tomorrow, we’ll be able to be more focused on choosing the best tyres (for the race). For sure, the air and track temperatures will increase a lot, so tomorrow we’ll concentrate on that and on further improving the feeling on the bike, although it was already very good today.”
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