Lorenzo Sets the Pace in Misano Practice

Yamaha Factory Racing rider Jorge Lorenzo wound up today as the pacesetter in the first day of practice for the Grand Prix of San Marino. The reigning World Champion struggled to find top form in the morning practice but worked hard with his crew to make key set up changes over the lunchtime period. The afternoon session saw the improvements fire him almost immediately to the top of the time sheets where he remained unchallenged for the entire session, leading at times by over second.

Lorenzo’s team mate Ben Spies was one of the men to beat in the morning session, clocking some impressive lap times. He was the fastest rider until the last seconds of the session; ultimately finishing up in second, just 0.286 from first. The afternoon practice was spent trying a number of different set ups for rider position, the Texan ending in fifth 0.54 seconds from Lorenzo in first.

Jorge Lorenzo

Position 1st - Time 1.33.929 - Laps 43
“I feel much more comfortable on the bike this afternoon with the changes we made. The setting we made is very similar to the Mugello one and there I won the race. To be honest I didn’t expect so much change because we improved more than one second. We are now quite close to a victory I think. Casey and Dani are still so fast but at least we are there with them.”

Ben Spies

Position 5th - Time 1.34.466 - Laps 42
“Not bad today, it wasn’t a great second session but we had to try a lot of things. We’ve been working a little bit on rider position since before Indy and we came up with a good direction for me. We tried to go more in that way this afternoon but it was too much so we lost a bit of the second session on it. Other than that we tried all the tyres we wanted to and went pretty fast with quite a lot of laps on them. Overall a positive day, we tried some stuff that worked and some stuff that didn’t. We need to work harder for tomorrow and improve some grip levels but the overall feel and speed I’m happy with.”