Valentino Rossi may be playing down his chances in staying in front of Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa in this weekend’s Misano GP, but the first practice session put the Italian rider on the top of the chart with a hot lap of 1.
35.
304, leaving Lorenzo in second just 0.
126s behind.
Lorenzo and Pedrosa exchanged the top position several times putting Rossi and the others well behind with Lorenzo putting in a series of laps almost a half a second faster than the rest of the field.
Dani Pedrosa was third, 0.
776s from Rossi and in the final minute of the session his Honda RC212V suffered from some sort of engine problem leaving the Spaniard parking his bike against the barriers and hitching a ride back to his garage.
Pedrosa’s engine failure may have left him with one less engine to use for the rest of the season.
Alex DeAngelis, is continuing to show good form and led the the begining of the session until a lowside put him off, but the rider from San Marino was able to come back later and take fourth, just 0.
016sec slower than Pedrosa.
The best of the rest started with Andrea Doviziozo on the second factory Honda who was 1.
012 seconds from Rossi.
Colin Edwards, Mika Kallio, Loris Capirossi, James Toseland and Nicky Hayden, 6th to 10 place respectively, were all in less than 0.
3sec between each other.
Aleix Espargaro on his second outing with Pramc Ducati after his MotoGP debut at Indy was 13th, putting behind him Chris Vermeulen, Niccolò Canepa, Marco Melandri and Gabor Talmacsi.
MotoGP Misano FP1 Results:1 Valentino ROSSI 1.
35.
3042 Jorge LORENZO 1.
35.
4303 Dani PEDROSA 1.
36.
0804 Alex DE ANGELIS 1.
36.
0965 Andrea DOVIZIOSO 1.
36.
3166 Colin EDWARDS 1.
36.
3507 Mika KALLIO 1.
36.
4198 Loris CAPIROSSI 1.
36.
5089 James TOSELAND 1.
36.
58810 Nicky HAYDEN 1.
36.
60811 Randy DE PUNIET 1.
37.
05612 Toni ELIAS HONDA 1.
37.
05713 Aleix ESPARGARO 1.
37.
12614 Chris VERMEULEN 1.
37.
13415 Niccolo CANEPA 1.
37.
30616 Marco MELANDRI 1.
37.
45417 Gabor TALMACSI 1.
37.
869
