But just 0.060secs separated Pedrosa,
Casey Stoner and
Colin Edwards at the top of the timesheets - and Dani fears the finicky Le Mans weather as much as any rival.
"We worked very hard today because we heard that the weather forecast for tomorrow isn't so good," confirmed the Repsol Honda rider. "At least we did get two hours of dry track time, which we dedicated to quickly finding a good basic set-up and then doing some work on tyre choice for Sunday's race.
"The revised part of the circuit seems quite bumpy, so I ran straight on there several times during the day, same as a few other riders," continued the Spaniard, referring to the modified Garage Vert hairpin at the bottom of the circuit, adapted to improve run-off.
"Overall I'm feeling quite happy about my machine after this first day but we must keep our heads down and keep working hard because the top few riders are all very close together on lap times," he concluded.
Team-mate
Nicky Hayden had a more difficult day, which he finished just twelfth fastest after suffering corner-entry problems.
"Things didn't go as smooth as we'd have liked today," confessed the American. "Braking at this track is so important and I don't have a good feeling when I'm braking. Straight line or leaned over, the front end doesn't feel so good. I don't know why, but I was hurting a little bit in that area in China too.
"We're basically a full second off the pace and that's a lot on a 1 minute 34 lap, so we need to sort something overnight. We really never found a direction all day, we were chasing our tails, so that makes it hard, and it's never good to fall behind when there's rain in the forecast. I know the team will work hard, so I'm confident in that," he added.
