Tech 3 Yamaha star
Andrea Dovizioso continues to shine for the satellite outfit as the Italian ended the opening day of practice for this weekend's German
MotoGP at the Sachsenring fourth fastest.
The morning session was blessed with dry weather conditions but the heavens opened before the afternoon practice, saturating the circuit.
Dovizioso, who has twice finished on the podium during the previous three rounds, was only 0.275s behind the pace of the leading three of Repsol Honda pair
Dani Pedrosa and
Casey Stoner and factory Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo.
Dovi, who completed a total of 44 laps in all at the tight and twisty German track, was eighth quickest in the wet session behind team-mate Cal Crutchlow.
“I am really satisfied with today because I am not so far away in both dry and wet conditions and the lap times are very close in both sessions,” he said.
“Immediately this morning in the dry I had a very good feeling with the YZR-M1 and we concentrated mainly on the race set-up.
“In the past here I have been very fast in practice but then had a lot of problems in the race, so we have worked a lot on conserving tyre life.
“This track is very short and you spend a lot of time carrying a lot of lean angle, so it is easy to wear the tyre too quickly,” he added.
"I have been working on carrying a little less lean angle to help save the tyres for the end of the race.”
Dovizioso is also content with his pace in the wet and was able to hang on to Pedrosa's coat tails in the afternoon.
“I am happy with my pace in the wet also because at the start of the session when the track was at its wettest, I followed Pedrosa and I could comfortably stay with him and he was the fastest in all conditions today,” he said.
“It has been a good start but we need to see what will happen with the weather.”