2009 Assen MotoGP FP1 Result - De Puniet Leads Tight Top Three

Randy de Puniet was the surprise leader at the end of the first session of practice for the MotoGP class. The Frenchman pipped Valentino Rossi in the final seconds of FP1 to take over the lead, consolidating his run of strong results over recent weeks.

The session had been dominated by the Yamahas from the opening minutes, with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo taking it in turns at the top of the timesheets. But just before the halfway mark, an interloper stole the top spot, Colin Edwards bringing the times under the mid-1'38 mark. Edwards' time held for 10 minutes or so, at which point the injured but still fast Dani Pedrosa took over the top spot with a lap of 1'38.194.

With quarter of the session left, Rossi and Lorenzo took to the track again, and dropped under the mark set by Pedrosa, Rossi breaking into the 1'37s. Despite the best efforts of Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner, they could not best Rossi's time, and it was left to De Puniet and the LCR Honda to topple Rossi from the top of the standings.

Stoner did manage to beat Jorge Lorenzo's time, taking 3rd spot behind De Puniet and Rossi, but the order of the top 3 is almost irrelevant. Just 0.03 of a second separates De Puniet in 1st from Stoner in 3rd. Less than 2/10ths behind Stoner, Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso are similary very close. In fact, the top half of the field is close, the first 11 riders separated by just 0.653 seconds.

James Toseland had a strong start to the session, and finished a respectable 9th, better than he has done recently, while Nicky Hayden was back as second fastest Ducati, edging out Mika Kallio in 12th place. Fastest Ducati or not, 12th position is not where Hayden really wants to be.

New boy Gabor Talmacsi finished at the bottom of the timesheets, but is now within a few tenths of Niccolo Canepa in 18th, and just over a second behind his team mate Yuki Takahashi. Takahashi betrayed his nerves once again by crashing  in the second half of the session, though fortunately his nowonly bike wasn't damaged too badly, and he could continue fairly quickly.

Practice continues tomorrow morning.

Results of MotoGP FP1: