The Repsol Honda team was in top form today during the first day of practice at the Malaysia GP. Dani Pedrosa lead the way, while Casey Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso filled the second and third place spots.
Behind the Repsol Honda team, two more Hondas came across the line. Marco Simoncelli and Hiroshi Aoyoma took fourth and fifth.
Pedrosa set an impressive lap of 2'01.250 around the Sepang track during the afternoon session, which was nearly a second faster than the lap record, set by Stoner in 2007.
"Today we went pretty fast and consistent even though the track wasn't very clean," Pedrosa said. "We did a good job in both practice sessions, but I would like to improve a little more on the chassis side to feel more comfortable with the front and choose the right tyre for the race distance. At the moment we are doing good steps but we need to keep on working with the same style and try to perform well tomorrow in qualifying. We had a bad qualifying in Australia and we want to be stronger here and do it better."
Stoner, who wrapped up the MotoGP championship last weekend in Australia, did 21 laps around the Sepang circuit.
Dovizioso, who is currently third in the standings, will be fighting with Pedrosa over the final two races to try to retain his spot on the podium. At the moment, Pedrosa is just four points behind Dovi in the standings.
"This morning we started with a good base and we worked on the set up to improve the feeling with the front," Dovizioso said. "The small changes we made worked well, but I'm struggling quite a lot in the middle of the corner with the bike leaning at the maximum angle, because on this track there is not so much grip, we need to continue working on the set up of the engine brake. Today we tested the rear hard tyre in both session, but it seems possible to race also with the soft so tomorrow we will test also the soft rear to understand how it works and to decide the tyre for the race. Today it was very hot, on Sunday the race will be at 4pm so it could be cooler, this is another element to consider. All in all, I'm positive, I really like this track and this is only the first day."
