Lorenzo Faster, Not Fastest

Henny Ray Abrams | July 24, 2010

MONTEREY, CA, JULY 24 – Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo was the fastest rider in Saturday morning’s free practice, but not the fastest on the weekend.Cool morning temperatures on the Monterey Peninsula guaranteed that the time set by Ducati Marlboro’s Casey Stoner on a much warmer Friday afternoon wouldn’t be challenged. Of the 17 riders, Lorenzo came closest, lapping the 2.238-mile site of Sunday’s Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix in 1:21.763 mins. The time came close to, but didn’t eclipse, the 1:21.699 mins. lap run by Stoner on Friday.The top three were tightly bunched, with Stoner second, and only 063 secs. back, while Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa was third fastest and just .113 secs. off Lorenzo’s mark.Pedrosa’s teammate Andrea Dovizioso was fourth fastest and .290 secs. slower in fourth place, and a little over a tenth faster than the first American, Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Ben Spies. Spies improved his time by .347 secs., which was impressive given the conditions.Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi was nearly equal to Spies’ pace and just in front of two more Yanks, Spies’ teammate Colin Edwards and Ducati Marlboro’s Nicky Hayden. Edwards was an encouraging.329 secs. faster than he’d been on Friday and Hayden was faster by .133 secs.Nicky’s brother, Roger Lee, made the biggest leap among the Americans. Roger Lee Hayden dropped 1.064 secs. off his Friday time riding the LCR Honda in place of the injured Randy de Puniet. Hayden finished the session 16th, one up on another stand-in, Alex de Angelis. De Angelis, riding the Interwetten Honda MotoGP RC212V while Hiroshi Aoyama recovers, crashed early in the hour and went on to finish 17th fastest.

Results:

1. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) 1:21.763

2. Casey Stoner (Ducati) 1:21.826

3. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 1:21.876

4. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) 1:22.166

5. Ben Spies (Yamaha) 1:22.293

6. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) 1:22.334

7. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) 1:22.642

8. Nicky Hayden (Ducati) 1:22.769

9. Hector Barbera (Ducati) 1:22.846

10. Aleix Espargaro (Ducati) 1:22.913

11. Marco Melandri (Honda) 1:23.077

12. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki) 1:23.307

13. Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki) 1:23.310

14. Marco Simoncelli (Honda) 1:23.706

15. Mika Kallio (Ducati) 1:24.037

16. Roger Lee Hayden (Honda) 1:24.368

17. Alex de Angelis (Honda) 1:24.367

Henny Ray Abrams | Contributing Editor

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.