Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa made a great start to his French GP weekend by setting the pace in today's opening practice sessions aboard his RC212V.

Team-mate Nicky Hayden had a more difficult day, ending up 12th fastest, but the American is confident of improvement tomorrow, so long as the forecast rain stays away.

With showers predicted for tomorrow, there was extra pressure on the team to find the best-possible set-up during today's two one-hour outings, Pedrosa looking superbly smooth and controlled around the historic French circuit, while Hayden worked to improve corner-entry performance.

Le Mans has been slightly modified for this year's event. The Garage Vert hairpin at the bottom of the circuit been adapted to improve run-off.

Dani Pedrosa
“We worked very hard today because we heard that the weather forecast for tomorrow isn't so good. 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. 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.”

Nicky Hayden
“Things didn't go as smooth as we'd have liked today. 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.”

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