Following a weekend off, after a hectic month in June, the MotoGP community reconvened at Sachsenring for the Alice Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland on Thursday. Wet weather seems to have persistently followed the World Championship all across Europe in recent months and the rain was present again as the MotoGP carnival arrived at Sachsenring for the tenth round of the year, with more showers predicted during the weekend. The fifth Grand Prix in seven weeks takes place at the German track this weekend, the final contest before the summer break for the 250cc and 125cc classes, while the premier class riders have a trip to Laguna Seca to look forward to in a week’s time before they get a well-deserved rest. The habitual Thursday afternoon pre-event press conference brought together current championship leader Dani Pedrosa, reigning World Champion Casey Stoner, Colin Edwards, Shinya Nakano and Sylvain Guintoli, to field the questions from the media. Ducati Marlboro star Stoner, the race winner last time out in Holland, contemplated the Sachsenring challenge commenting, ‘Last year here I was quickest in every session apart from the race, and in the race itself we just had an unfortunate problem with the tyre. This year everyone has been working so hard to make sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen again and that’s why I believe we can be competitive here.’ A karting race also took place on Thursday afternoon, with MotoGP class riders Anthony West and Alex de Angelis coming second and third respectively, behind Czech 250cc competitor Lukas Pesek.