Productive initial inspection for Dovizioso

Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso finished third quickest in the first free practice at Silverstone on Friday as he completed his first assessment of the new circuit layout. The Italian went about establishing his racing lines and confirming the gear ratios and machine settings he will work on in Saturday’s second session before qualifying.

Dovizioso was immediately at ease on his RC2121V on Silverstone’s bumpy surface and spent much of the session around the top of the timesheet. His best lap of 2’06.347 was just under four-tenths off that of leader Jorge Lorenzo, and on Sunday the Italian will attempt to emulate his British win of last year, which came at Donington. Dovizioso is also looking to add to his three podiums from the opening four races of 2010.

“The first impressions of Silverstone are very positive. It’s a technical track, very fast and I had a lot of fun riding here today,” explained the 23 year-old. “There are different kinds of asphalt but this is not an issue, the main difficulty is the bumps. There are many bumps and it’s difficult to control the bike because of these.”

“I’m happy that I managed to interpret the track layout quite quickly from the beginning of the session. I had a good feeling with the bike and I think that we are starting from a good base. I also think there is a lot of room of improvement and we didn’t push too much at the end because it started raining.”

He added: “We didn’t test the new frame we have available here because it was important to learn the new circuit first. I hope we will have dry conditions tomorrow and for race day.”