A constant downpour ruined the first day of training at the Italian circuit. Training in the afternoon cancelled because of a flooded track

The San Marino GP could not have got off to a worse start on the first day of training. What should been everybody in the World Motorcycling Championship`s first encounter with the Italian track – the organisers had even extended the time for training today so that the riders could get to know this unknown track – was an authentic fiasco owing to the terrible weather.

The only riders not to get hit by the downpour on the Circuit of Misano were the young lads in 125cc, who during the morning session were able to ride in the dry. Afterwards in the first free training for MotoGP the rain started to fall heavily and riders were falling all around the circuit. In 250cc the rain stopped momentarily and the track dried a little, and that made their work even harder.

A little before the start of the first timed session for 125cc torrential rain appeared again and this time it completely flooded the whole Circuit of Misano. The large amount of water that fell on the Italian track in the end flooded the paddock, the pits and the track itself, an absurd situation to even think about riding motorbikes, and so the rest of the day`s training at Misano was cancelled.

Nicky Hayden 

“Well, now things are going to get interesting. This is a new circuit and today we learnt a little about it, we saw what it is like and the surface seems to be fine. It is narrow at some points, but the adherence in rain was not as bad as we had heard.

It has quite a lot of bumps, even in the wet, and on some curves it seems that you go backwards; they are very open when you enter and narrow at the exit. It is going to be quite tough getting through them, but the track is not so deceptive in reality; for example there are no blind curves. It seems that the fast curves at the end of the straight at the back are going to be the most technical ones, the trickiest section, and it is on the fast curves where you can make up time. We will be back tomorrow and we will be faced with a lot of hard work.”