Dani Pedrosa said the initial signs were positive after topping the Friday Practice times with a new chassis and engine at Laguna Seca. The Spaniard was effectively riding a 2013-spec machine and pulled three tenths ahead of Jorge Lorenzo although he still believes there is time to be found with the new package.
“We did a good job today, we managed to get a good lap time in the morning and improved it in the afternoon, although the grip level was very poor and we struggled a bit with the rear. The tyres were working a little better in the afternoon, but it was hard to work on the consistency due to the lack of grip. I hope to be able to work on the pace tomorrow to prepare the race. The new bike is working good here, I will continue working on the set up tomorrow”.
Repsol Honda teammate Casey Stoner is only running the new engine after preferring the bike in that configuration, without the new chassis, and the World Champion struggled compared to Pedrosa, ending up down in third. Stoner joined his teammate in complaining about the grip levels and has some changes in mind for tomorrow.
“It hasn’t been a particularly eventful day, we didn’t really get the package we were hoping for. We struggled a little this morning with stability on the soft tyre, we improved it slightly this afternoon on the hard tyre but found the bike to be quite aggressive and there wasn’t much grip. We have a few things to try tomorrow morning, if we can make some small improvements then we’ll be very happy with the bike. As it is now, we need to improve before we can say if we’re competitive or not”.
