Casey Stoner fastest on first day of practice for French GP in Le Mans.
Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner shrugged off his performance in the Portuguese Grand Prix to set the fastest time in both practice sessions on the Bugatti Le Mans Grand Prix Circuit in France.
Stoner finished a somewhat distant and unhappy third in Estoril with both machine and physical problems preventing him from joining the fight at the front between teammate, and eventual winner, Dani Pedrosa, and Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo. The test the day after the race provided encouraging results and Stoner built on that progress today in Le Mans. The Australian was fastest in the morning, then lowered his time in the afternoon to finish the first day with a cushion of .404 secs. "The track has quite good grip and we have a better feeling than in the past few years in this track and we are very happy,” Stoner said after his lap of 1:33.782 mins. around the 2.60-mile hairpin and chicane-filled track. “We went out this morning and didn't change so much from Portugal as the tracks are pretty similar for us. We felt good immediately and then changed a few things and tried something we haven't tested before on the Honda which seemed to give us more traction in the rear without affecting anything else." The fickle weather is a constant worry in France, where conditions can change day to day and hour to hour. Today’s conditions were ideal and Stoner was hopeful it wouldn’t change. “The weather is fantastic here and I hope it stays this way,” he said. “We're happy to be where we are and we'll continue to work tomorrow morning to ensure we have the best set-up for qualifying. Every session we do we're trying to modify something to improve the bike. I don't know if this is good enough to get pole at the moment as people are able to pull out a very good lap on the soft tire. Today we are fast, but I'm sure tomorrow the others will also be fast. At this moment we feel comfortable with the settings with just a few more adjustments to make tomorrow. Hopefully we can stay ahead of the rest.” San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Marco Simoncelli continued his early season speed by finishing second to Stoner. The tall, bushy-haired Italian has been fast, but erratic. In Portugal he crashed on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday he’d been fastest in both sessions, Saturday he was on pole until the very final minutes, and Sunday he crashed on a cold tire in the first left-hander after the opening three rights. Today he was fourth in the morning, but his afternoon pace was fast enough to improve his time by over .8 secs. and move him up to second. “I am happy because we have taken a positive step from the morning to the afternoon,” said “Super Sic.” “We have improved by almost a second and that is a lot. It is partly down to improving the set-up, but also the fact that this morning I was using a soft front tire and that is not the best option for me. After a quick look at the data we can see that we need to make a small change to improve my confidence under braking, which is the area we struggled most in today. “Overall we haven't made a bad start, although we will probably have to make some changes related to fuel consumption given that lower temperatures are predicted for tomorrow and Sunday. Anyway, I am confident and we have started out on the right foot.” One of the riders he leapfrogged was Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa. The Estoril winner was the only rider in the 17-rider field not to improve his time from the morning to the afternoon. “In the morning it was difficult with the cold conditions to find some grip and then in the afternoon the grip got better but we couldn't improve as much as we expected,” Pedrosa said. “Anyway, we have some ideas and I hope to make a step forward tomorrow. We need to work on the front and rear suspension to get a better feeling, the bike was moving a lot this afternoon entering and at the exit of the corners. We have to keep the momentum and bounce back again because we are doing well, the bike is going very strong and we have to keep focused and work hard.” The fact that Pedrosa didn’t mention his surgically-repaired left shoulder was a positive sign for the fragile Spaniard. Nicky Hayden was both the first non-Honda and the first Ducati. The Ducati Marlboro rider was fourth fastest and six places better than teammate Valentino Rossi. Hayden had been looking forward to Le Mans, a track that rewards stability under braking, one of the Desmosedici’s assets. Though he was happy about being closer to the front, he was concerned at the gap of .870 sec. to the pace-setting Stoner. “Today was certainly better than the last few Fridays, by quite a long way,” Hayden said. “It’s still early, and it’s just one day, but the bike felt quite good here straight away. The Portugal test was very useful for me and the team. We thought we made a little step there, and it seems like we confirmed that here. Overall, the bike definitely seems a little bit better, but we’ve still got a long way to go to be that fast consistently. Also, the gap to the very front is still out there quite a ways. Le Mans is difficult because it’s not a real grippy track, but we know our bike is really good on hard braking, and as I expected, that’s helping us here. Anyway, hopefully this will give us a little bit of momentum, and we’ll keep rolling tomorrow.” Said teammate Rossi, “For sure I hoped today would go better than that. We had a few problems trying to find the right setting, so we’re too far back today. We’re struggling somewhat on corner exits. The bike moves a lot under acceleration, and we’re trying to understand if it’s a question of setup, or one of electronics, because at the moment, I’m having a hard time riding. In the end, we found an interesting change for the rear, but there were just a few minutes left in the session. I only had time for a couple of laps, during which I more or less matched my best time. Maybe with a little more time, I could have dropped another tenth and made up some positions, but tomorrow we definitely have to do much better when we try that setup with more time.” World championship leader Jorge Lorenzo ended the day with the fifth fastest time and .877 sec. off Stoner’s mark. Yamaha teammate Ben Spies was down in tenth place and 1.194 secs. slower than Stoner. "As I’ve said before, this year it’s going to be a difficult year," Lorenzo said. "Some of the other riders are much faster than before. We’re working hard and we are trying a lot of things to improve the bike. We will keep on, we made some improvements over today and I hope tomorrow we will make a step and be a bit faster.”Italian Andrea Dovizioso struggled with stability on the brakes while putting the third Repsol Honda RC212V in the sixth position. “Tomorrow we will continue to fine tune the set-up and the electronics,” he said. Colin Edwards took his usual spot as the top satellite team rider. It was a difficult day for the Texan at an important race for the team, which is based in France and sponsored by Monster Energy, the race’s title sponsor. As reported earlier on www.sportrider.com, Edwards’ crew chief, Guy Coulon, has allegedly been charged with manslaughter by French police after the long-time GP veteran apparently backed up one of the team semi-trucks over a motorcyclist sitting in line directly behind the vehicle at a toll station on the A50 highway. The 54-year-old motorcyclist was killed after reportedly being dragged underneath the truck before Coulon realized that something had happened. Just behind Edwards came San Carlo Honda Gresini's Hiroshi Aoyama, with Rossi only .007 sec. off Aoyama's time. Spies was down in tenth. Aoyama, like Dovizioso, was suffering on the brakes. “We just need to improve grip and find more stability under braking but we have some ideas,” the Japanese rider said. Like Stoner, Spies wanted to put the Estoril race behind him. Spies' concentration was affected by a mechanic's mistake-a clamp was left on the fuel tank overflow tube-and he eventually crashed after running off the track several times. "“I was pretty happy with today, building some confidence back up after the last race in Estoril," Spies said. "The sessions went pretty well for us; we just didn’t put in one fast lap. We’ve been quite consistent with race distance on the tires and I’m reasonably happy with the bike so if we can make it better for tomorrow I think we’ll be up with the front guys.” 2011 MotoGP Le Mans France Friday practice results 1. Casey Stoner (Honda) AUS 1:33.782
2. Marco Simoncelli (Honda) ITA 1:34.186
3. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) SPA 1:34.431
4. Nicky Hayden (Ducati) USA 1:34.652
5. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) SPA 1:34.569
6. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) ITA 1:34.705
7. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) USA 1:34.939
8. Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda) JAP 1:34.959
9. Valentino Rossi (Ducati) ITA 1:34.966
10. Ben Spies (Yamaha) USA 1:34.976
Photo Gallery: 2011 MotoGP Le Mans Friday practice-Stoner fast in both sessions-Sport Rider Magazine
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