Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo scored his fifth pole position of the year at the circuit where he won his sensational first MotoGP race last year in his rookie season, posting his quickest lap today right towards the end of the session and keeping his teammate and championship leader Valentino Rossi on his toes. Rossi kept close but didn’t quite have the pace of Lorenzo, while Ducati’s Casey Stoner showed that he’s still a threat even after his two-month layoff by slotting into the third spot. Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa heads the second row, with Colin Edwards showing his usual strong qualifying form by finishing fifth quickest. Nicky Hayden showed some improvement from his practice troubles, qualifying ninth.
“Yeah, finally we’ve found a good setup for the soft tire,” said Lorenzo about his qualifying session. “I was getting a little bit worried, because the last few races we’ve been having problems with the soft tires, even though we were competitive nonetheless. Now we’re going fast with both the hard and soft tires, and every session I felt great on the bike, so tomorrow we’ll push to the limit and see what happens.”
“We’ve fixed a lot of problems this afternoon that we had with braking and now it’s not so bad,” said Rossi, “but we need now to improve the traction off the slower corners. We’re losing time accelerating from the last hairpin. Hopefully we can find a better setting for tomorrow, because if the temperature is the same as today, 28 laps will be very hard.”
“Friday practice, definitely not,” replied Stoner when asked if he felt back up to speed from his health-induced two-month racing sabbatical. “I was feeling a little sore and tired, but nothing like the symptoms from the last races; it was more because I’ve been off the bike for so long. This morning we came out and everything felt good, same with the afternoon, we were fastest on the hard race tires. But when we put on the soft tire and tried to make them work, we weren’t generating any grip out of the right hand side with two of the tires. I don’t know if we’ve got faults in the batch of tires we got or whether it was bad luck or what, but it wasn’t until the second tire we used that we were able to get any grip, and I basically didn’t have enough time to use it to its potential. I’ve got to give a big thanks to my team who’ve supported me through this; I’ve had a lot of critics, a lot of people saying I was never going to come back, never going to be fast again…it’s enjoyable to read in the press. So I’ve been very happy to make this comeback the way I have the last two days. Tomorrow’s the race and that’s the important one, but thanks to everyone who’s supported me through this. We obviously made the right decision to take that bit of time off.”
- 1. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Yamaha 1:36.214
- 2. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Yamaha 1:36.474
- 3. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati 1:36.528
- 4. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Honda 1:36.702
- 5. Colin Edwards (USA) Yamaha 1:37.142
- 6. Randy De Puniet (FRA) Honda 1:37.448
- 7. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Suzuki 1:37.489
- 8. Andrea Dovisioso (ITA) Honda 1:37.541
- 9. Nicky Hayden (USA) Ducati 1:37.654
- 10. Mika Kallio (FIN) Ducati 1:37.813