Spies Shines on Day One in Indianapolis
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Spies Shines on Day One in Indianapolis
[Image: yamaharacinghdr.jpg]

Local hero Ben Spies was quick to find his form today in the first practice sessions for Sunday’s Indianapolis Grand Prix. The Texan Yamaha Factory rider was second fastest at the end of the day, 0.295 seconds behind leader Dani Pedrosa and nearly half a second faster than team mate Jorge Lorenzo. The day started slowly with a dirty track but times soon started to drop in the afternoon as more fresh rubber was laid down.

Team-mate Lorenzo had a slower start to the day, finding the track conditions more challenging in the search for fast consistent times. The Championship leader picked up pace considerably from the morning session to finish behind Spies in third at the end of the day.

Ben Spies - Position 2nd - Time: 1'40.078 - Laps 34

“The track definitely made a huge improvement from the morning to the afternoon today. The bike is working really well, we made some small changes then just worked on race set up. We used hard tyres for the whole time and were able to set our fastest lap and be consistent with a lot of laps on the tyres which is encouraging. We’ll try the softer tyres tomorrow to see if we can pick up some speed for qualifying but for the race set up the bike is good.”

Jorge Lorenzo - Position 3rd - Time: 1'40.502 - Laps 31

“We were better this afternoon than this morning. We managed to get closer to the first position. I didn’t feel great on the track today so I hope we can improve the feeling for tomorrow. This track seems to be quite difficult for us to find a good set up. I’m struggling on the entry to the corners where I don’t seem to have much grip.”

Wilco Zeelenberg - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager

“A difficult day, the grip is not as good as on other tracks but that’s the same for everybody, it just seems we struggle a little more. Normally Jorge is very consistent because he can understand a track; here at the moment the track is good in parts and then bad in parts which is quite confusing for his rhythm. Anyway we improved a lot from the morning but we need to make some more steps tomorrow.”

Massimo Meregalli - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director

“We made a good start here today with Ben. There were some small difficulties in FP1 due to the tarmac condition but we were able to work and improve the balance of the bike and increase our pace with the hard tyres. This was also true at the end with a lot of laps on them. Jorge had some difficulties also with the track conditions but made big improvements over the day and we expect more from him tomorrow.”


Dovizioso and Crutchlow make positive start at iconic Indianapolis

Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team riders Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow slipped seamlessly back into fast form after the MotoGP summer break to clock competitive times inside the top six at the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway today.

Torrential rain that fell during severe thunderstorms yesterday meant track conditions were far from ideal in this morning's opening practice session, with a lack of grip resulting in lap times that were over two seconds off record pace.

Dovizioso was fast today and took full advantage of significantly improved conditions this afternoon to challenge for the top three throughout the second 45-minute session.

The Italian rider was a massive 3.2s faster with more grip available and his best time of 1.40.560 put him fourth on the combined timesheets. He was only 0.058s outside of the top three and is confident with further improvements to the race set-up of his YZR-M1 machine that he will be a podium contender in Sunday's 28-lap race.

Crutchlow finished seventh this morning but he was a victim of the treacherous conditions when he fell heavily off his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1 machine having inadvertenly run over a damp patch that remained from yesterday's heavy rain. The British rider was unhurt in the spill and he bounced back superbly to claim a place inside the top six after posting a best time of 1.41.055. That was over two seconds faster than his opening practice best of 1.43.295.

Andrea Dovizioso - Position 4th - Time: 1'40.560 - Laps 30

“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 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 - Position 6th - Time: 1'41.055 - Laps 33

“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.”

2012 MotoGP United States - Indianapolis 17/08/2012

1 Daniel Pedrosa Honda ESP 1'39.783
2 Ben Spies Yamaha USA 1'40.078
3 Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha ESP 1'40.502
4 Andrea Dovizioso Yamaha ITA 1'40.560
5 Casey Stoner Honda AUS 1'40.623
6 Cal Crutchlow Yamaha GBR 1'41.055
7 Alvaro Bautista Honda ESP 1'41.072
8 Stefan Bradl Honda GER 1'41.255
9 Nicky Hayden Ducati USA 1'41.397
10 Valentino Rossi Ducati ITA 1'41.529
11 Randy De Puniet ART FRA 1'41.855
12 Karel Abraham Ducati CZE 1'42.279
13 Mattia Pasini ART ITA 1'42.290
14 Aleix Espargaro ART ESP 1'42.360
15 Yonny Hernandez BQR-FTR COL 1'42.761


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18-08-2012, 11:09 AM
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