Pedrosa: "To have good pace already is important!"

Fastest on Friday as former winner gets back on top in Jerez

Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team) has a great record at the Circuito de Jerez, with his most recent win in 2013 – and the ‘Baby Samurai’ took back to the top on Day 1 in 2017, fastest in FP1 in the wet and repeating the feat in a dry FP2.

Fitting the softer tyre and blitzing in a 1:39.420, the three-time World Champion was over half a second clear of his closest challenger Jack Miller (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) and leads the way to Q2 qualifying after FP2.

Dani Pedrosa, P1: “Today we had a good day, Positive in the wet and in the dry. We were trying to work as much as we could today because the track was in different conditions…but I wanted to go the fastest I could already because it’s more track time, and to have good pace already is important. Today we had two different bikes and managed to try both of them, so tomorrow we’re more focused on trying the right tyres because it will be warmer, and also on improving the feeling a bit but we started well. There’s not a big difference between the bikes, just a setup, but we’re working to get a rhythm and figure out the correct tyre – for sure tomorrow with more temperature we need to pay attention to this, and work on the pace. And tomorrow is qualifying so it’s important to be focused in the afternoon!”