Stefan Bradl ended a day of Jorge Lorenzo dominance by edging ahead of the world champion in the closing stages of Friday practice at Brno. The German pipped Lorenzo by four hundredths of a second on a day when the top six riders were covered by just three tenths of a second.
After a disappointing weekend at Indianapolis, Bradl is eager to bounce back in the Czech Republic and although he was the quickest man on Friday, Stefan is still looking for improvements ahead of qualifying.
“We can be happy with this first place but I want to keep my feet on the ground. It looks good on the paper but I am still not 100% happy with the bike setting and this is the reason why we have struggled in the first free session this morning. We need to work on the front part of the bike as we do not absorb the bumps as good as I want. I think we have more potential than this but we need to be more consistent tomorrow because the other guys will push to qualify in the front”.
Even though he was knocked off top spot late on, Lorenzo was unconcerned given his experimental approach to the session and remains confident of taking the fight to Honda here.
“I started in a very good way in the morning and also in the beginning of the second practice. Then we started to try some things on the bike that weren’t as good as we expected. We spent all the practice trying things so I wasn’t very fast at the end of the session. Anyway, the positive thing is tomorrow we have a clear direction so we can go more quickly to a better lap time. We can improve tomorrow on braking, and the smoothness of the bike at the beginning of the corner.”
Dani Pedrosa was third fastest on the circuit that saw his epic duel with Lorenzo last year while Valentino Rossi beat championship leader Marc Marquez to fourth. Cal Crutchlow was sixth and searching for grip but teammate Bradley Smith was encouraged with seventh ahead of Alvaro Bautista. The factory Ducati riders remain inseparable although there was no repeat of their Indianapolis contretemps. Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden currently occupy the last two automatic spots in Q2 and will look to defend them in Saturday morning’s session.
 bwin Grand Prix Ceske Republiky – Combined Practice Classification (Top Ten Automatically Qualify For Q2) |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Rider | Bike | Team | Best Time |
| 1 |  Stefan Bradl |
Honda | LCR Honda MotoGP | 1:56.500 |
| 2 |  Jorge Lorenzo |
Yamaha | Yamaha Factory Racing | 1:56.538 |
| 3 | Dani Pedrosa |
Honda | Repsol Honda Team | 1:56.600 |
| 4 |  Valentino Rossi |
Yamaha | Yamaha Factory Racing | 1:56.726 |
| 5 | Marc Marquez |
Honda | Repsol Honda Team | 1:56.733 |
| 6 |  Cal Crutchlow |
Yamaha | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 1:56.800 |
| 7 | Bradley Smith |
Yamaha | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | 1:57.351 |
| 8 | Alvaro Bautista |
Honda | GO&FUN Honda Gresini | 1:57.401 |
| 9 | Andrea Dovizioso |
Ducati | Ducati Team | 1:57.754 |
| 10 |  Nicky Hayden |
Ducati | Ducati Team | 1:57.896 |
| 11 | Andrea Iannone |
Ducati | Energy T.I. Pramac Racing | 1:58.039 |
| 12 | Aleix Espargaro |
ART | Power Electronics Aspar | 1:58.217 |
| 13 | Michele Pirro |
Ducati | Ignite Pramac Racing | 1:58.958 |
| 14 |  Hiroshi Aoyama |
FTR | Avintia Blusens | 1:59.178 |
| 15 | Hector Barbera |
FTR | Avintia Blusens | 1:59.235 |
| 16 | Claudio Corti |
FTR Kawasaki | NGM Mobile Forward Racing | 1:59.288 |
| 17 | Colin Edwards |
FTR Kawasaki | NGM Mobile Forward Racing | 1:59.390 |
| 18 |  Yonny Hernandez |
ART | Paul Bird Motorsport | 1:59.539 |
| 19 | Danilo Petrucci |
Ioda Suter | Came IodaRacing Project | 1:59.719 |
| 20 |  Randy de Puniet |
ART | Power Electronics Aspar | 1:59.799 |
| 21 | Michael Laverty |
PBM | Paul Bird Motorsport | 2:00.338 |
| 22 | Karel Abraham |
ART | Cardion AB Motoracing | 2:00.413 |
| 23 |  Martin Bauer |
S&B Suter | Remus Racing Team | 2:00.730 |
| 24 | Lukas Pesek |
FTR | Came Ioda Racing Project | 2:01.549 |
| 25 |  Bryan Staring |
FTR Honda | GO&FUN Honda Gresini | 2:01.746 |
