Spain’s Jorge Lorenzo fired out a warning that he was targeting a ninth win in his MotoGP title-winning season after he topped free practice times for today’s Valencia Grand Prix.
The newly-crowned world champion, who was to bid for an eighth pole position of the season yesterday, timed a fastest lap of one minute and 32.690 seconds at the end of the second free practice on Friday at the Ricardo-Tormo circuit.
Australian Casey Stoner was second on his Ducati, 0.207 seconds off the pace.
“It’s been a very good first day here,” said Lorenzo, who wrapped up the world title with three races to run. “I’m very motivated to ride here and I feel much better than last year, a little bit faster so the results are perfect at the moment.”
“We started strongly from the first moment and I am feeling so confident, plus my bike is working very well here,” Lorenzo added.
The Spaniard added that he and his team had targeted a ninth win of the season today, before the rider’s home fans.
Colin Edwards of Yamaha was in third almost half a second off Stoner, with Italians Marco Simoncelli (Honda) and Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) both within four-thousandths of a second of the American as they completed the top five.
In unfamiliar territory in ninth position was seven-time world champion Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha), who was almost a full second off Lorenzo’s pace, with Ducati’s Nicky Hayden completing the top 10.
“This morning was not so bad but the afternoon was not great,” Rossi said. “We weren’t able to improve the setting from the morning and we had a few problems.
“We have some work to do because at the moment we don’t have enough grip and the bike is difficult to ride,” said the 31 year-old Italian, who last won at the circuit in his first season with his team in 2004. “The times are quite close but we are in still ninth so we need to find a way to improve.”
“It’s a very important weekend, the last for me with Yamaha, so of course we want to try to be at the maximum,” Rossi added.
The rider with the most success at the venue is Honda’s Dani Pedrosa, last year’s race winner and with five victories in total across the premier (twice), 250cc (twice) and 125cc classes.
However, Pedrosa, who sits in second place in the overall standings 19 points ahead of Rossi, looked shaky after his injury--defying race in Portugal last week and could only finish 12th.
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