The FIAT Yamaha team return from the break on a dominant streak and championship leader Jorge Lorenzo and teammate Valentino Rossi are aiming to continue this form for Round 10 of the championship, at Brno. And it was Lorenzo who set the early pace, topping the timesheets at the end of the session.
After the session, Lorenzo was glad to be back in action “I am happy to be riding here in Brno again. It’s always difficult to go back to work after the holidays and this track is so different to Laguna, so wide and much longer; it took me a few more laps than usual to get going! Once I found my rhythm this was a good session and I felt happy on my bike, with a good setting to start from. We tried both rear tyres and we need more time to choose, because unfortunately it rained a bit at the end and we had to stop early. We’ll have to wait and see how the track is tomorrow but we hope for it to be dry so we can continue with what we started on today.”
Valentino Rossi had used the break to recover properly from his broken leg and shoulder, and the 9 times world champion seems to be back on form. Rossi was only 0.065s off 2nd place man, Dani Pedrosa.
“I’m happy, this was a good practice and I feel good on the bike. After some laps I started to feel some pain in the shoulder and the leg but in general I am okay and my condition has improved a lot from the last race. We’ve done a good job on the setting and I was fastest throughout most of the session. It was a pity the rain came because we couldn’t make the final step, but hopefully we can improve again tomorrow. Even though I still have some pain I am quite a lot stronger, especially with the shoulder, so I don’t have such a big problem in braking.”
