Dani Pedrosa leads warm-up practice at Austin GP

This morning’s MotoGP warm-up practice was on a cool track and the 20 minute session for some it was just to refine the final set-up, but for those riders who had to find a better set-up after yesterday’s qualifying session which could turn out to be less effective, as the temperatures for the race will be higher.

However the gaps between the riders was much tighter, Dani Pedrosa took the top of the timesheets in 2:04.

341, while Cal Crutchlow blazed to second and just 0.
017s behind the Repsol Honda rider and ahead of Jorge Lorenzo.
Marc Marquez was fourth fastest and 0.
263s from his team mate, but his last flying lap had to be aborted when he found Bryan Staring in front of him, while Stefan Bradl was fifth and less than half a second from his Honda counterpart.
Valentino Rossi had a definite improvement and moved up to sixth, but whether this new set-up will help him race wise remains to be see as he start 8th on the grid.

Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso was seventh and the last rider to within a second from Pedrosa.

Nicky Hayden and Andrea Iannone were 8th and 9th respectively, while Aleix Espargaro put his wheels into tenth and ahead of Gresini Honda’s Alvaro Bautista and Pramac’s Ben Spies and Yamaha Tech3’s Bradley Smith.
At the end of the session the riders were supposed to line up on the starting grid to see what will happen when they hit the first turn that is uphill, and open to several different racing lines, instead every just practiced their starts separately.
2013 MotoGP Austin warm-up results:01- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – 2’04.
341 02- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.
017 03- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.
145 04- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 0.
263 05- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 0.
473 06- Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 0.
730 07- Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 0.
850 08- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.
612 09- Andrea Iannone – Energy T.
I.
Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 1.
733 10- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP13 – + 1.
901 11- Alvaro Bautista – GO&FUN Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 1.
985 12- Ben Spies – Ignite Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 2.
146 13- Bradley Smith – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 2.
432 14- Yonny Hernandez – Paul Bird Motorsport – ART GP13 – + 2.
887 15- Randy De Puniet – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP13 – + 2.
911 16- Hector Barbera – Avintia Blusens – BQR FTR – + 3.
825 17- Claudio Corti – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – FTR Kawasaki – + 4.
007 18- Hiroshi Aoyama – Avintia Blusens – BQR FTR – + 4.
112 19- Danilo Petrucci – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda Suter BMW – + 4.
549 20- Michael Laverty – Paul Bird Motorsport – PBM 01 – + 4.
864 21- Colin Edwards – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – FTR Kawasaki – + 5.
468 22- Bryan Staring – GO&FUN Honda Gresini – FTR Honda MGP13 – + 5.
470 23- Lukas Pesek – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda Suter BMW – + 6.
545 24- Blake Young – Attack Performance Racing – Attack Performance APR – + 8.
969