Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa took his fourth pole of the season with a dominant performance in MotoGP qualifying at the San Marino Grand Prix in Misano, Italy. The Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix winner, using a fresh engine, put his name at the top of the order in the second half, though not for the duration.
Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo went to the top just inside the nine minute mark and held it for five minutes. Then Pedrosa took it back with a lap that put him .187 seconds up on Lorenzo, with Ducati Marlboro’s Casey Stoner third in front of Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi and Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Ben Spies.
With less than three minutes remaining Stoner improved his time, but not his position. He would start from the end of the front row.
As the final minute began to count down Pedrosa upped the pace, as did Rossi. Pedrosa’s time was up at all three intervals and when he crossed the stripe he’d improved his time and solidified his pole. Rossi slowed in the final two splits.
Pedrosa’s lap of 1:33.948 was faster than last year’s pole, but slightly down on the best ever pole time of 1:33.378 set by Stoner in 2008. Fresh off his Indy win, his third of the season, Pedrosa will be looking to take more points from Lorenzo, who will start the 12th round of the championship with a 68 point lead.
“It was important to be on front row. That’s good,” Pedrosa said. “But we still have to work on race set-up and I hope we can get some improvement for tomorrow and just try to get a good race.”
Lorenzo will start from the middle of the front row. The Majorcan didn’t have the outright fastest lap, but his race pace was consistent. “Well, we have improved on the early practice, so I’m confident for the result tomorrow,” Lorenzo said. “Also we have a good pace. Unfortunately we couldn’t take so much profit of the soft tire. But, anyway, our bike is not the fastest, but I think we can make better on the corners, so we are with motivation for tomorrow.”
Then came Stoner, who had yet another front end crash. After experimenting with the 2011 Ohlins forks in Indy, the Australian reverted to the 2009 forks for Misano.
“Yeah, well yesterday we were working a lot with the new forks again and we couldn’t get any feeling with them,” Stoner said. “We’re wondering why we’re so far off the pace. Straight away we went to bike two today with the old forks and immediately we went a second quicker, literally jumping off one bike to the next without any more effort. So we’re looking a lot more comfortable for the race tomorrow.
“We worked on a few more thing in qualifying to get it feeling better and I did one lap which was relatively smooth and everything just went so well that I thought, right, I’ll push a little bit harder on the next lap and, yeah, I tried to run a little bit too much corner speed through there. So only a small crash on a tight corner. But yeah, for tomorrow we’re looking a lot more comfortable than we have in the past, for sure. I’m still behind Dani and Jorge, but we’re optimistic for tomorrow, see what can happen. Don’t know what the weather’s going to do and hopefully get another podium.”
Valentino Rossi, who lives close to the track in Tavullia, was fourth fastest. Since returning from injury at the German Grand Prix, Rossi has yet to secure a front row start.
Next to him will be the rider who’ll replace him on the Fiat Yamaha team next year, Ben Spies. Spies had a few cracks at the front row, but, like Rossi, lost time in the final half of the track.
LCR Honda’s Randy de Puniet fills out row two as the first privateer.
Colin Edwards, who was fourth fastest in the morning, finished seventh fastest on the row three pole as he rides to keep his job. Brit Cal Crutchlow will almost certainly be announced as one of the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 riders this weekend, though no decision has been made on his teammate.
Next to Edwards were two Italians, Andrea Dovizioso (Repsol Honda) and Marco Simoncelli, who lives in Cattolica, about 2.5 miles from the track.
Ducati Marlboro’s Nicky Hayden finished down in 14th. The Kentuckian struggled all session and spent most of the time near the very bottom. He improved to 11th very late, then fell a few spots when others lapped at their best.
2010 MotoGP Misano Italy qualifying results:
1. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Honda 1:33.948
2. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Yamaha 1:34.256
3. Casey Stoner (AUS) Ducati 1:34.397
4. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Yamaha 1:34.470
5. Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha 1:34.472
6. Randy de Puniet (FRA) Honda 1:34.751
7. Colin Edwards (USA) Yamaha 1:34.782
8. Andrea Dovizioso (ITA) Honda 1:34.826
9. Marco Simoncelli (ITA) Honda 1:34.934
10. Marco Melandri (ITA) Honda 1:35.018
14. Nicky Hayden (USA) Ducati 1:35.303