Pedrosa quickest on Bridgestone debut

From motogp.com

With just a day in which acclimatize himself to Bridgestone tires before the next round of the MotoGP World Championship, Dani Pedrosa performed an extensive first test with Japanese rubber at Misano on Monday.

The Repsol Honda rider completed some 81 laps of the San Marino circuit, having announced his switch from Michelin less than 24 hours beforehand.

Pedrosa's fastest lap was a 1:34.652, some eight-tenths of a second quicker than his most mercurial time during Sunday´s race. The Spaniard's marker proved unmatched by the other five regular riders out on track, four of which had prior experience of Bridgestone's 2008 rubber.

He scrapped plans to use a pneumatic valve version of Honda's 800cc engine for the second post-race test in succession, understandably focusing on race tires instead. No extensive qualifying tire testing programme was undertaken by the 2007 MotoGP World Championship runner-up.

The man whose experiences from the past two races will prove useful for Pedrosa, with his having ridden a factory spec Honda RC212V with Bridgestone tires for the past two rounds, Shinya Nakano was second fastest onboard the San Carlo Honda Gresini standard engine version of the Japanese manufacturer's bike. He was nearly eight-tenths of a second down on Pedrosa's marker.

An absentee from the first practice session at Misano, Kawasaki's John Hopkins played catch-up in the testing session with an extended series of laps. The Anglo-American's teammate, Anthony West, was also in attendance, sandwiched between Randy de Puniet and Alex de Angelis on the Monday timesheet.

Official Times
1. Dani PEDROSA, Repsol Honda Team - 1:34.652
2. Shinya NAKANO, San Carlo Honda Gresini - 1:35.446
3. John HOPKINS, Kawasaki Racing Team - 1:35.879
4. Randy DE PUNIET, LCR Honda MotoGP - 1:35.972
5. Anthony WEST, Kawasaki Racing Team - 1:36.101
6. Alex DE ANGELIS, San Carlo Honda Gresini - 1:36.120