Monterey, 3 July: One week after the Netherlands GP which saw De Puniet battling for a thrilling seventh place, the LCR Honda MotoGP Team racer and his squad moved to California at the spectacular Laguna Seca race track for the eight round of the calendar.
 
Under clear, sunny skies the 60-minute free practice for the U.S. Grand Prix was held in hot conditions today (ambience temperature of 24°C) with Randy De Puniet struggling with rear grip. The Frenchman riding the Honda RC212V no. 14 set his quickest fast time of 1’23.439 on lap 30 of 31 at the roller-coaster style layout of the 3.610km circuit getting the 11th place overall. Record man Valentino Rossi set the quickest lap time of the day at 1’21.981. 

De Puniet – 11th – 1’23.439

De Puniet – 11th: “In the beginning I faced some front end problems but we quickly fixed them with the guys. After that I came in on a harder rear tyre but struggled with the rear grip on the maximum angle in the corners so I could not go faster. Unfortunately my machine no. two had some brake problems so we could not really use that bike to adjust our problems. However we knew our issues and we’ll try to fix them for tomorrow’s qualifying. Obviously I expected a better base set up but we still have track time to improve the grip”.


Free Session:

1  Rossi (1’21.981)
2  Lorenzo (1’.22.093)
3  Stoner (1’22.170)
4  Pedrosa (1’22.637)
5  Elias (1’22.682)
6  Dovizioso (1’22.880)
7  Melandri (1’23.140)
8  Vermeulen (1’23.217)
9  Edwards (1’23.285)
10 De Angelis (1’23.406)
11 De Puniet (1’23.439)
12 Capirossi (1’23.637)
13 Toseland (1’23.690)
14 Hayden (1’23.747)
15 Gibernau (1’24.533)
16 Talmacsi (1’24.926)
17 Canepa (1’25.511)