De Puniet Tops First Practice at Assen

Randy De Puniet

The first practice session at the Assen circuit was not topped by either Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo or Casey Stoner – the riders that practically rule the world standings at the moment – but by the surprising LCR Honda rider Randy de Puniet. The Frenchman managed to top the time charts on Thursday, after posting the best lap time of 1:37.842.

The first part of the practice was dominated by semi-injured Dani Pedrosa, but the Yamaha duo soon took control of the action in the last quarter of an hour. Coming to the Detherlands after dominating the Catalunya GP from one end to another, both Jorge Lorenzo (first) and Valentino Rossi (second) shared the lead in the last minutes of the session.

However, with only a few laps to go, De Puniet posted a time some few tenths of a second quicker than Rossi, with the Italian also passed by Ducati's Casey Stoner in the process. Rossi did not let this go unanswered, as he proceeded to another flying lap of his own, some 0.005-seconds short of De Puniet's time.

However, Rossi did manage to clinch second spot, only 2 hundreds of a second ahead of Stoner. Jorge Lorenzo had to settle for 4th place, ahead of Honda duo Andrea Dovozioso and Dani Pedrosa.

“I'm very surprised because I like this track and my bike is good for this type of track, but at the beginning of the practice I had a lot of problems with the soft front tire and I did some mistakes, was a bit nervous and had some trouble with the brakes and the electronics on the bike,” said a stunned De Puniet in the end, as he scored his quick lap on hard tires.

Here are the complete time charts of yesterday's practice session:

1. Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda)                   1:37.842
2. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)                           1:37.847
3. Casey Stoner (Ducati)                                 1:37.877
4. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)                             1:38.061
5. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda)                          1:38.092
6. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)                                 1:38.194
7. Colin Edwards (Tech 3 Yamaha)                  1:38.205
8. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)                            1:38.350
9. James Toseland (Tech 3 Yamaha)               1:38.379
10. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki)                             1:38.429
11. Alex de Angelis (Gresini Honda)                1:38.495
12. Nicky Hayden (Ducati)                               1:38.928
13. Mika Kallio (Pramac Ducati)                       1:39.464
14. Marco Melandri (Hayate Kawasaki)           1:39.597
15. Toni Elias Gresini (Honda)                          1:39.642
16. Sete Gibernau (Hernando Ducati)              1:40.151
17. Yuki Takahashi (Scot Honda)                      1:40.185
18. Niccolo Canepa (Pramac Ducati)                1:41.020
19. Gabor Talmacsi (Scot Honda)                     1:41.380