Sachsenring, 11 July: The opening day of free practice for Sunday’s Deutschland Grand Prix was conducted in near perfect summer weather today with ambience temperature of 30°C at the 3.671Km Sachsenring track which hosts the ninth round of the season.

LCR Honda MotoGP rider Randy De Puniet clocked his fastest lap time of 1’23.116 (less than 4 tenths off the 4th fastest Valentino Rossi) in the middle of the afternoon session chasing the correct set-up for tomorrow’s qualifying session. The Frenchman aboard the Michelin-shod Honda RC212V made 58 laps throughout the day setting a good rhythm on race trim.
Stoner topped the timesheets with a 1’21.582 quickest lap time.


De Puniet – 10th: “It was a “normal” first day of practices. Basically we did not find any particular problem with the bike set-up and I was able to improve my lap time in the afternoon session. We still have to fix some small things to close the gap with the firsts even though my best lap time is less than 4 tenths off Rossi’s 4th lap time. However it’s not so easy to improve the lap time because this track is very tight but I feel confident for tomorrow. We tried some good rear tyres and I could run consistent laps in the 1’23 bracket. At the moment the race pace is quite good for us”.

Free Practices:

1 Stoner (1’21.582)
2 De Angelis (1’21.993)
3 Edwards (1’22.463)
4 Rossi (1’22.617)
5 Pedorsa (1’22.759)
6 Lorenzo (1’22.894)
7 Nakano (1’22.922)
8 Hayden (1’22.975)
9 Dovizioso (1’22.999)
10 De Puniet (1’23.116)
11 Guintoli (1’23.209)
12 Capirossi (1’23.274)
13 Elias (1’23.366)
14 Vermeulen (1’23.411)
15 West (1’23.452)
16 Melandri (1’23.698)
17 Toseland (1’23.864)