2015 Japanese Grand Prix Practice - Rider Quotes
- Oct 9, 2015
- 5 min read
Day one of the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix was a rather exciting one, in particular the second session where we saw most of the field fit their softest option rear slick and go for a qualifying simulation.
Jorge Lorenzo was fastest with a 1:44.731, seemingly undeterred by his sprained shoulder. His margin in FP2 was a lot thinner than he'd have liked after Dani Pedrosa posted a great lap of 1:44.859 to go 2nd quickest. Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso were a couple of tenth behind on the green-banded Extra-soft slick.
The man who used this tyre to full effect was Avintia's Hector Barbera, who crossed the line with a 1:45.645 to initially go 6th fastest. After the dust settled he was 10th, but could be a QP2 runner if it happens to rain tomorrow morning for FP3. Even then I'd back him to make it straight through.
There were a number of fallers, all but one of whom going down at the 90 degree corner at turn eleven. Loris Baz, Stefan Bradl and Yamaha wild card Katsuyuki Nakasuga scuffed up their leathers at the corner, whilst Jack Miller had a lazy front-end spill at the turn ten hairpin. All were unhurt.
So lets have a look at what some of the riders had to say after day one at Motegi.
Scott Redding, EG 0,0 Marc VDS Honda:
“This morning was difficult, not because of any problems, but because we had to make some changes to the electronics to account for the extra grip that's available here this year. In the afternoon we started to make some progress, with the lap times getting faster and faster, with my quickest lap coming on the harder option rear tyre. I would have liked to get into the 1:45s bracket, and I did try, but we didn't quite get there today. I feel quite comfortable with the bike, we're just missing a little from the mid-corner to exit here at Motegi, so avoiding the first qualifying session will be important, which means I need to push for the top ten in the final free practice session tomorrow. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with today.”
Bradley Smith, Monster Yamaha Tech 3:
“Firstly, I enjoy coming to Motegi because it is always good fun due to the Japanese fans and seeing the amount of passion that they have for MotoGP. With regards to today, things were very positive for us on track. We did a really good job with making the bike as stable as possible which was our main focus today because this is very important here due to the circuit's hard braking points. In addition, we were able to run a lot of laps on the soft rear tyre and with the modifications we made, I am quite confident that we will have a good pace at the end of the race on Sunday.
“Overall, I am very pleased as my time put me 5th, and I am especially happy as I completed that lap whilst I was using the harder rear tyre, so this hsows that both compounds are working well. For tomorrow, the main aim is to work more with the softer rear option because I believe that this will be the race choice so we will continue in that direction in order to be able to close Yamaha's home Grand Prix with a strong result.”
Andrea Dovizioso, Ducati Team:
“I am pleased because today we went well straight away, and more importantly, we managed to improve in both sessions. My GP15 is a bit more stable under braking, but it's not enough for the moment and so we are going to have to try and make another step forward in this direction for tomorrow. In any case our race pace is quick and this is vital in view of Sunday.”
Andrea Iannone, Ducati Team:
“Today was quite a positive day for me. We were competitive right out of the box this morning and our bikes proved to be fast and have a good performance This is very important for the work that we are doing and for the way my bike behaves; I think that this circuit manages to highlight our strong points, and so we are satisfied. Let's hope we can continue along this path tomorrow, improve a bit more and always be as close as possible to the guys at the front.”
Jorge Lorenzo, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP:
“It was a surprising day, because I didn't expect to be so competitive, especially in the morning. I expected to improved little by little, but starting from the first run I was the fastest rider and I improved even more on the last outing, so I finished first in the morning and the afternoon. The bike is going to better than last year and we have a great set-up. Obviously my shoulder isn't perfect, but even with my shoulder in this condition I'm still able to ride and be quite consistent. I believe that with normal physical conditions I could have been even faster, but there's no point in thinking about what could have happened. It's better to focus on the current situation and take the maximum profit. For tomorrow we still have a margin to improve the bike to suit my riding. I hope it won't be raining on Sunday, so let's hope the weather forecasts improve.”
Valentino Rossi, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP:
“This morning was not so bad and also in the afternoon I felt quite good with the harder tyre. I expected to improve more when I put on the softer option at the end, but unfortunately this didn't happen because we're not good with the setting yet and have to work a bit further. We have to check the data and check which way we want to follow tomorrow. It's always difficult to improve in MotoGP. At the end of the practice on the Friday everybody puts in new tyres and already the lap times are very quick and faster than last year, so we have to work hard and try to stay at the top.”
Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda Team:
“We tested a lot of things out in the practice sessions today and we finished in a good position, but we encountered more problems than we had expected. However, we are working as best we can to reduce these problems and go faster. We shall see just how much we are able to improve tomorrow.”
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team:
“The first practice was useful for us to see how my finger felt, and to correctky adapt my riding position and it we pretty well. At least I was able to ride correctly and brake late, which is the important thing. Obviously it hurts, but it is bearable. As for the set-up, we have made improvements but we still have room to do better – above all with the electronics, which we can see need to adjust to this circuit. We will see tomorrow if we can take another step forward and get amongst the top five.”
Cal Crutchlow, LCR Honda:
“I'm not too pleased with today, but hopefully we will go better tomorrow. We had some problems with the bike in this morning's session so we lost quite a few laps and this afternoon we were only able to do the work needed to do in the morning session. As a result my position is not the best at the moment. I also had some problems with the rear tyre in my last run, but I'm looking forward to seeing whether we can improve tomorrow in a lot of areas as I'm confident we can. We need to gain time in some of the braking zones and also in the middle of the corner with the rear grip. But the team will be working hard tonight as always and hopefully I will be able to push harder tomorrow.”
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