Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team riders Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow conquered contrasting weather conditions at Germany's Sachsenring track today to make a positive start to round eight of the 2012 MotoGP World Championship.

This morning's opening practice session took place in warm and sunny conditions and Dovizioso and Crutchlow were immediately able to set a competitive pace to finish in fourth and fifth respectively.

Italian Dovizioso, who is in a rich vein of form with two podium finishes in the previous three races, was only 0.275s away from the top three after quickly finding a fast rhythm on the tight and twisty Sachsenring track. British rider Crutchlow also enjoyed a productive start to the eni Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland weekend and he was only 0.159s behind Dovizioso's pace in fifth position.

Both were hoping to work on improving the set-up of their YZR-M1 machines this afternoon but heavy rainfall saturated the Sachsenring track just minutes before the second practice session got underway.

Andrea Dovizioso

“I am really satisfied with today because I am not so far away in both dry and wet conditions and the lap times are very close in both sessions. Immediately this morning in the dry I had a very good feeling with the YZR-M1 and we concentrated mainly on the race set-up. In the past here I have been very fast in practice but then had a lot of problems in the race, so we have worked a lot on conserving tyre life. It has been a good start but we need to see what will happen with the weather.”

Cal Crutchlow

“It was a decent start to the weekend and I am not too far away from the best pace in both dry and wet conditions. But I need to make some improvements in the first sector because that is where I am losing a lot o f time. It is mainly in the first two corners where I'm struggling and we don't fully understand why, so tonight I'll sit down with my crew and analyse the data so we can work on being faster in that part of the track tomorrow. But I am still very happy today because last year this was one of my worst races.”

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