Rea and Pedrosa debuts on difficult first day in Misano
The end of the summer brought with it some sporadic light showers to the Adriatic Coast and interrupted the track action on the first day of free practice for the San Marino Grand Prix, thirteenth round of the 2012 MotoGP™ World Championship.
Repsol Honda rider Jonathan Rea ventured out for a few laps in the afternoon, just to get some feeling on the RC213V at the Marco Simoncelli Circuit.
The British rider, competing in his first MotoGP race replacing the injured Casey Stoner, finished sixth in the combined free practice times with a best lap time of 1'44.999.
Dani Pedrosa remained in the garage for both sessions waiting for more stable conditions, but they never arrived and the team decided to wait until tomorrow to start preparing for the race.
Jonathan Rea: "It was a frustrating day with these weather conditions. This morning the track was slightly wet and began to dry up towards the end of the session, but then it began to rain again, so we didn't make it out at all.
Then in second free practice I went out straight away with the slick tyre to try and get some kind of feeling and I only managed three full laps as the tyre wasn't getting up to temperature. It was a pretty pointless exercise and I didn't have any real feedback to give to the engineers.
It's a strange situation when the temperature is so low that none of the top riders even go out on track. We need to cross our fingers for some sunshine tomorrow so I can find a good rhythm on the bike and gain some confidence in the tyres in time for qualifying."
Dani Pedrosa: "On days like this it's almost impossible to get any feedback on the bike. Actually, we saw in both sessions that the weather was changing so quickly that the riders going out with slick tyres had to come back in because it started raining or the other way around: going out with wets and destroying them in just a few laps as it was drying up again.
The weather forecast looks better for tomorrow and Sunday, so let's hope we can take advantage of tomorrow morning's session to find a good setting and have a good qualifying."
Source: Repsol Honda Team
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