Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso got his Japanese Grand Prix campaign off to a good start when, despite the pouring rain at the Motegi twin circuit, he topped the timesheets in the overall classification for the day, a fraction of a second faster than his championship rival, Repsol Honda rider Marc Marquez.
โI'm very pleased with my Friday performance here at Motegi because we started off really quick,โ he said. โWe were in some doubts about the grip, but I already found a good feeling this morning, while this afternoon I confirmed my speed, and even more importantly, I did my best time immediately at the start of the session.โ
โWe have got off to a really good start and we've already got a good base setting: now we have to work on the details because the rear tyre wear is quite substantial, even though we used the hardest tyre available.โ
Third fastest was the Aprilia od Aleix Espargaro followed by the second Ducati of Jorge Lorenzo, who had a very spectacular crash in the opening free practice session of the day, when he was hit violently by the bike of Cal Crutchlow, who had crashed a couple of seconds earlier while braking for Turn 9. Thankfully both men emerged unscathed from the incident, however they did have a rather heated discussion over it.
โToday it was raining a lot and the track was in a very difficult condition, but I'm quite satisfied because I'm up at the front, together with the quickest riders, and starting off as well as this on Friday is always a good sign,โ Lorenzo said. โIn the afternoon we improved the bike and I lapped with a good pace. This morning I was quite lucky because when Crutchlow's bike hit me and I crashed, I could have been badly hurt. Luckily in the end, apart from a bang on the hand, it was nothing serious. As for tomorrow, if the weather is still the same, my aim will be to go in the same direction as today.โ
Dani Petrucci was fifth fastest followed by Iannone, Pedrosa Crutchlow and Rins, who rounded out the top ten.
The two Yamaha's of Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi were eleventh and twelfth respectively.
โWe werenโt expecting to face such difficulties today. Unfortunately, we struggled with a lack of rear grip, especially on corner entry, even though the grip level of the Motegi track is always good,โ said Yamaha's Massimo Meregalli. โOur performance level in wet conditions continues to be a point of improvement. We tried to solve this issue during todayโs wet sessions, but we didnโt get the breakthrough we hoped for.โ
โSince we werenโt ready to exploit the extra soft tyre, as we wouldn't have been able to enjoy its full advantage, we decided against using it, also because of the small quantity that we were given. The weather conditions are expected to remain the same, so weโll continue to keep pushing in the rain, because weโre eager to make a big step over the weekend for Sundayโs raceโ
1. | A. DOVIZIOSO | DUCATI TEAM | 1'54.877 | |
2. | M. MARQUEZ | REPSOL HONDA TEAM | 1'54.920 | |
3. | A. ESPARGARร | APRILIA RACING TEAM GRESINI | 1'55.061 | |
4. | J. LORENZO | DUCATI TEAM | 1'55.234 | |
5. | J. ZARCO | MONSTER YAMAHA TECH3 | 1'55.468 | |
6. | D. PETRUCCI | OCTO PRAMAC RACING | 1'55.541 | |
7. | A. IANNONE | TEAM SUZUKI ECSTAR | 1'55.614 | |
8. | D. PEDROSA | REPSOL HONDA TEAM | 1'55.773 | |
9. | C. CRUTCHLOW | LCR HONDA | 1'56.149 | |
10. | A. RINS | TEAM SUZUKI ECSTAR | 1'56.229 | |
11. | M. VIรALES | MOVISTAR YAMAHA MOTOGP | 1'56.376 | |
12. | V. ROSSI | MOVISTAR YAMAHA MOTOGP | 1'56.435 | |
13. | K. NOZANE | MONSTER YAMAHA TECH3 | 1'56.453 | |
14. | S. REDDING | OCTO PRAMAC RACING | 1'56.517 | |
15. | K. ABRAHAM | PULL&BEAR ASPAR TEAM | 1'56.776 | |
16. | A. BAUTISTA | PULL&BEAR ASPAR TEAM | 1'56.827 | |
17. | B. SMITH | RED BULL KTM FACTORY RACING | 1'56.853 | |
18. | P. ESPARGARร | RED BULL KTM FACTORY RACING | 1'56.872 | |
19. | S. LOWES | APRILIA RACING TEAM GRESINI | 1'57.250 | |
20. | L. BAZ | REALE AVINTIA RACING | 1'57.259 | |
21. | H. BARBERA | REALE AVINTIA RACING | 1'57.540 | |
22. | H. AOYAMA | EG 0,0 MARC VDS | 1'57.548 | |
23. | T. RABAT | TEAM EG 0,0 MARC VDS | 1'57.645 | |
24. | K. NAKASUGA | YAMALUBE YAMAHA FACTORY RACING | 1'58.341 |