Randy De Puniet Inside Top Ten Day One Australia

The penultimate round of the MotoGP World Championship got underway in Australia today in the absence of the injured Yonny Hernández, replaced by local rider Kris McLaren, and Ben Spies. Casey Stoner came into his home round with injury worries of his own but he showed no signs of discomfort with his badly damaged right ankle as he proved once again that he is the king of Phillip Island, as the local advertising campaign suggests. The Australian may have a weak ankle but he dominated today's proceedings with an iron fist, leaving Dani Pedrosa trailing by 0.8 seconds and Jorge Lorenzo even further adrift, as he aims for his sixth successive victory in his home Grand Prix.

After the tribulations of the last two rounds Randy De Puniet was finally smiling again today as he recovered his feeling with the POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar ART machine. The Frenchman set a strong pace from the outset today and then dropped his times significantly in the afternoon to record and impressive 1'32.674, the tenth fastest time of the day. His team-mate Aleix Espargaró was not as comfortable, meanwhile, and despite being the second fastest CRT on track he was unable to improve his fastest lap (1'33.727) from the morning to the afternoon and he is hoping to make big steps tomorrow.

10th Randy De Puniet 1.32.674 (39 laps): 

“I am happy because I have had a good feeling all day today. I went six tenths quicker this afternoon than this morning and managed to gap my team-mate Aleix by a second for the top CRT spot. We have really struggled for a set-up in the last couple of races so we have to be happy to start off a GP like this. I feel strong and I plan to keep going like this for the rest of the weekend. It will be difficult to make up a ten-point gap to Aleix in the championship in just two races but we're going to try. Taking Stoner out of the equation we are close to the top guys and this is not an easy track.”

13th Aleix Espargaró 1.33.727 (31 laps): 

“I really struggled to get a feeling today. I could feel something wasn't right with the front wheel this morning and I didn't feel comfortable. The same issues carried over to the afternoon and we tried a different gearbox that I didn't like so the performance was the exact opposite to what we were hoping for. We also had an electrical fault that brought the session to an early end but there is no need to panic – today was the day to try these things so now it is time to analyse everything and try to improve tomorrow.”

Power Electronics Aspar Press Release

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Source: http://www.zimbio.com/MotoGP/articles/L4TKrpNwcoN/Randy+De+Puniet+Inside+Top+Ten+Day+One+Australia

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