"A great day" for Dovi

GP of Japan: an excellent start for Andrea Dovizioso, who ends day 1 with quickest time. Crutchlow eleventh. Andrea Dovizioso got his Japanese weekend off to the best possible start, the Italian rider ending the opening day of free practice at the top of the timesheets. The Ducati Team man was quickest overall at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit, setting a time of 1’45.140, over four-tenths of a second quicker than Jorge Lorenzo in second place. Dovizioso had already begun the day well with a third place in the morning’s opening free practice session behind Lorenzo and Marquez. His team-mate Cal Crutchlow could only manage eleventh place in the first day’s timesheets, and was unable to improve his quickest lap due to traffic, but in any case he said he was happy with his pace. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 1st (1’45.140)
“I am very happy because, apart from my fastest lap which I set with a soft tyre, I also had a good pace with the medium option. We immediately got off to a good start this morning with the set-up, both regarding the chassis and the electronics, and this enabled me to push hard right from the early laps. Today was a great day but tomorrow I’ll have to try and shave off some more tenths from my lap time.” Cal Crutchlow (Ducati Team #35) – 11° (1’46.221)
“I’m not pleased with the result today but I am pleased with the speed. I thought we could have maybe been in the front five in that session but I got held up in my fast lap. I could have been a lot closer than what I was so I’m happy with this and it means we can work well for tomorrow. I had some problems in the session and didn’t get out in the first ten minutes due to a problem with the brake. Now I’m looking to rest because I’ve not been feeling well at all today due to a bit of flu, so maybe tomorrow I can have a better performance.”