The Italian was fourth on the combined timesheets. Dovizioso was only 0.058s outside of the top three and is confident with further improvements to the race set-up of his Yamaha satellite machine that he will be a podium contender on Sunday.
His British team mate finished seventh in the first practice session, but he was a victim of the treacherous conditions when he fell heavily off his machine, having run over a damp patch that remained from yesterday's heavy rain. Crutchlow was unhurt in the spill and he bounced back to claim a place inside the top six after posting a best time of 1.41.055.It was over two seconds faster than his first practice best of 1.43.295.
Andrea Dovizioso
"I'm really happy with my rhythm this afternoon because this morning the track was unbelievable. There was absolutely no grip and it was very difficult to try and understand the feeling from the bike or where the limit was. I improved by more than three seconds from this morning so it shows how bad the conditions were. But we expected this because it's always like this here. The infield track we race on is not used during the whole year, so it's quite dirty. And yesterday's rain certainly would not have helped. We made some good changes to the bike for the second session but we need to improve our pace again tomorrow. Ben [Spies] was able to do some very consistent laps and he is the benchmark for Yamaha so far. I can look forward to tomorrow though with a lot of confidence and I'm sure I can be fighting to be on the second row at least. If we can find some more grip, particularly on corner entry, then we should be very competitive tomorrow."
Cal Crutchlow
"I am pretty happy to finish sixth overall on the first day because I had a big crash this morning and it could have been much worse. Fortunately I wasn't injured but there were a few damp patches still on the track after the storms from yesterday but it was really hard to see them. I took a big hit on the left side of my body but I was able to recover well and ride strongly this afternoon. We made some good changes to the bike that gave us some more grip but it was obvious this morning the track wasn't in great condition when you look at how slow the lap times were. I used the same hard rear tyre for the whole session and we gained a lot of valuable information that will help for Sunday's race. I did my fastest lap on the last one, which is a really good sign and bodes well for the rest of the weekend."
Press release courtesy of Monster Yamaha Tech 3.
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