Submitted by David Emmett on
Jorge Lorenzo continues his dominance of the MotoGP class, leading the first session of free practice at Assen. But Lorenzo's advantage is minimal, just 0.011 over Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner, who had the Fiat Yamaha rider in his sights throughout the session. The fact that the Ducati GP10 is working well at Assen is underlined by Nicky Hayden's performance, grabbing the 3rd fastest time, just over a hundredth of a second faster than Monster Tech 3 Yamaha's Colin Edwards.
Andrea Dovizioso was the fastest of the Repsol Hondas, lapping the track a little faster than Dani Pedrosa, the two Repsol bikes ending the session in 5th and 6th, ahead of a remarkable Aleix Espargaro, who took top rookie honors on the Pramac Ducati ahead of Ben Spies. Hiroshi Aoyama's replacement on the Interwetten Honda, Kousuke Akiyoshi, found that testing is a little bit different to racing, lapping the track some 6 seconds off the time of Lorenzo, and just half a second quicker than the Superstock 600 riders during the World Superbike weekend back in April.
Results:
| Pos | No. | Rider | Bike | Time | Diff | Diff Previous |
| 1 | 99 | Jorge LORENZO | YAMAHA | 1'35.169 | ||
| 2 | 27 | Casey STONER | DUCATI | 1'35.180 | 0.011 | 0.011 |
| 3 | 69 | Nicky HAYDEN | DUCATI | 1'35.686 | 0.517 | 0.506 |
| 4 | 5 | Colin EDWARDS | YAMAHA | 1'35.699 | 0.530 | 0.013 |
| 5 | 4 | Andrea DOVIZIOSO | HONDA | 1'35.868 | 0.699 | 0.169 |
| 6 | 26 | Dani PEDROSA | HONDA | 1'35.922 | 0.753 | 0.054 |
| 7 | 41 | Aleix ESPARGARO | DUCATI | 1'35.927 | 0.758 | 0.005 |
| 8 | 11 | Ben SPIES | YAMAHA | 1'35.942 | 0.773 | 0.015 |
| 9 | 58 | Marco SIMONCELLI | HONDA | 1'36.002 | 0.833 | 0.060 |
| 10 | 33 | Marco MELANDRI | HONDA | 1'36.269 | 1.100 | 0.267 |
| 11 | 14 | Randy DE PUNIET | HONDA | 1'36.294 | 1.125 | 0.025 |
| 12 | 40 | Hector BARBERA | DUCATI | 1'36.735 | 1.566 | 0.441 |
| 13 | 65 | Loris CAPIROSSI | SUZUKI | 1'36.786 | 1.617 | 0.051 |
| 14 | 36 | Mika KALLIO | DUCATI | 1'37.261 | 2.092 | 0.475 |
| 15 | 19 | Alvaro BAUTISTA | SUZUKI | 1'37.384 | 2.215 | 0.123 |
| 16 | 64 | Kousuke AKIYOSHI | HONDA | 1'41.332 | 6.163 | 3.948 |
Comments
I hope Akiyoshi picks it up,
I hope Akiyoshi picks it up, at that pace he'd barely make it to top-20 in Moto2. Yamaha must be rethinking about Yoshikawa. In the same light, what would Espargaro be doing without substituting Canpea last year, he's doing great now!
Give the guy a break
A little mischievious that Superstock comment David. I'm presuming it is Akiyoshi's first ride at Assen. Not all riders can be Ben Spies quick right from the off. I'm sure he'll lose half that gap by the end of tommorrow.
He's the only one new to that track
His results at Sepang should be comparable by the end of Saturday. In testing this winter, after riding one day when compared to the regular riders after one day, he was about 3.2 % off of Rossi's pace. This was less than a second away from Melandri. And that was when he was just switching from one bike to another to give them shakedown tests to be sure everything was OK for the next day for Pedrosa and Dovisioso.
C Ya Boys...
It appears that Stoner and Lorenzo are in a zone of their own and I suspect will do the same in the race Saturday.
I foresee another good weekend for Spies as he is already about 2 tenths from the third spot and he is notorious for his methodical progress in climbing the charts throughout the weekend.
Could another podium for the rookie be possible this weekend? Or will it be Nicky’s turn?
Either way I’m a happy boy!
Hayden, Spies and CE
As much as I like Spies, I think Nicky needs a podium. Imagine if Colin could maintain his practise and qualifying pace in the race, that would be the BEST!!
..
Was anyone else seriously conflicted about how excited to be last week when Spies passed Hayden? I'm a fan of both and it was mind melting to see Spies pass Hayden, I didn't know to be excited for Spies or sorry to see Hayden lose the podium spot.
Me too!!!
I would actually love for Nicky to be on the podium and Spies be in 4th, but I like these two riders that I could not decide.....I even secretly cursed Dovi to fall so that both my fav riders are on the podium :) That was a great scrape and too bad, Nicky cracked and Ben got thru. Good ride!!! Good ride!!!
Progress
I hope Casey will not stop progressing in the practises as he did a couple of times this year. And hopefully Mike Leitner will pull out some tricks for Dani.
If only Jorge improves and Casey and Dani can't up their pace, it will be again a boring (though excellent ridden) Lorenzo Land show.
Great track for the USA boys
It should be interesting this weekend. Edwards, Hayden and Spies are all good here so it'll be nice to see maybe 1 or 2 Yanks on the podium this weekend.
Go Nicky
Yeah, it would be good to see Nicky step up and grab a podium Saturday.
Anyone know the gap in times from last year? The SBK bikes were a second or two faster then last year.
Assen 2006
Who can forget that one ? Hope to see a repeat involving whoever. What I don't want to see is another rider out of it on a stretcher.
I also hope Ducati with Stoner in particular have turned the corner.
Ben and Colin. A huge top speed disparity between the Tech 3 bikes today.
In my eyes, this has everything to do with playing towards their strong sectors, rather than technical differentials.
Nice to see how close it is on day one from Hayden back to Spies.
Look at the top speed
Look at the top speed difference between the San Carlo Marcos. Melandri was over 20kmh fater. Yikes. Simoncelli is a big kid.
Speed trap
The speed trap is located right at the point where some riders are just rolling off the throttle, while others are still holding it on. So it's a poor measure at Assen.
Top Speed not indicative
Looking at the analysis on motoGp,com, it's extremely obvious that the top trap speeds were not achieved on particularly fast laps, at least for the top guys. That may settle down a bit as FP progresses and set-ups become more settled but at the moment it's almost meaningless.