Dry hopes for San Carlo Honda Gresini after Friday runs

Strong in preseason testing at Phillip Island, Alex de Angelis and Shinya Nakano were quick out of the blocks in the dry on Friday. De Angelis crashed out in the wet in the afternoon, but both he and his teammate were satisfied with their opening session.

Alex de Angelis - Third

`I´m really pleased with how the first free practice went this morning because we rediscovered some of the feeling we´d lost in Japan. It is obviously only one session and we have to keep working because we still have a lot of other things to try. Unfortunately we didn´t get chance to do that this afternoon because of the rain and the crash was another setback. Now I´m really looking forward to tomorrow because the forecast is good and I´m keen to get out there and make more progress.´

Shinya Nakano - Seventh

`I´m satisfied with the job we did on a dry track this morning although the afternoon was much more difficult because of the rain. We tried a few different things with the tyres but we need to improve the feeling with the bike in the wet and find some more grip if we´re going to be fast. Now we´ll have to wait and see what the weather does tomorrow because deciding which way to go with the setting. I´m comfortable in the dry although we do still need to take some small steps forward with the setting.´