Spain’s Dani Pedrosa dominated both MotoGP free practice sessions on Friday, beating his Honda teammate Casey Stoner of Australia ahead of Sunday’s Czech Grand Prix. Pedrosa set the day’s best time at 1min 56.328 sec in the first session, beating world championships leader Stoner by almost a second on a cloudy, cool morning in Brno, about 180 km southeast of Prague. The 25-year-old then clocked 1:56.454 in the second session on the 5.403-kilometre circuit, still leaving Stoner behind by a broad margin on his best of 1:56.831.
“The feeling was very good today from the beginning. The bike was working well from the first round and we could move ahead, improving little by little in both practice sessions,” said Pedrosa. “I’m fresh after the summer break, the rest I had has helped me a lot, I can feel the energy I didn’t have in the races before the break, so I hope I can keep the pace for Saturday and Sunday and be strong for the race,” he added.
“I’m very happy with the job we did in both sessions and I think we can still improve and be ready for both the qualifying practice and the race,” said Pedrosa, a 125cc champion and a double 250cc champion. Stoner, the winner of the previous race at Laguna Seca on July 24, was upset with his performance on the circuit where he won in 2007, the year he won his only championship title. “Today hasn’t been that positive to be honest, we seem to be having a similar start to our weekend in Laguna and aren’t sure which direction to take at the moment,” said the 25-year-old.
