Jorge Lorenzo fastest in FP1 at Motegi

Motegi is the first of the three intense back-to-back races flyaway races and this morning at the Twin Ring circuit the weather was dry and sunny and the fastest rider in the first free practice was standings leader Jorge Lorenzo who dominated the session and posted the fastest lap of the session in 1.46.558 and he also had the best pace in the runs he did.

Dani Pedrosa was the second quickest rider at Honda’s home circuit and he was just 0.141 slower than his title rival and sandwiched between another Yamaha rider Andrea Dovizioso who was third fastest with his satellite M1.

Casey Stoner’s return to action after his ankle injury was immediately problematic as his Honda had technical issues after a just a few corners on his first outlap and he had to park it against one of the barriers, but the Australian was up to speed despite having missed the last three rounds by taking the fourth best time on his penultimate lap. Stoner did 12 laps testing his fitness on the difficult ’stop-and-go’ circuit.

Ben Spies was fifth followed by his Yamaha counterpart Cal Crutchlow. Nicky Hayden was the fastest Ducati rider with his seventh spot and he is riding with fractured radius picked up after his Aragaon crash and he was the last rider to be within a second from Lorenzo. Honda satellite riders Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista were 8th and 9th respectively, while Valentino Rossi who was expecting to be more competitive at the Japanese circuit was a lowly tenth and more than 1.2 seconds off pace.

Katsuyuki Nakasuga, Yamaha’s wildcard riding under the YSP racing banner was 11th fastest ahead of Ducati satellite riders Hector Barbera and Karel Abraham who were accusing more than 2.5 seconds from Lorenzo and were just a tenth faster than Aspar CRT riders Aleix Espargaro and Randy de Puniet. Espargaro suffered a harmless crash early in the practice.

Roberto Rolfo debuted with Speed Master taking the place of Mattia Pasini and was 20th and ahead of returning Avintia Blusens rider Ivan Silva who was back after David Saloms’s very brief stint in MotoGP.

MotoGP Motegi FP1 results:

01- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – 1’46.558
02- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.141
03- Andrea Dovizioso – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.361
04- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.758
05- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.770
06- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.808
07- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 0.993
08- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 1.003
09- Alvaro Bautista – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 1.079
10- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP12 – + 1.228

with TWOWHEELSBLOG