Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa continued his domination of the Brno MotoGP weekend by grabbing pole position at the Czech Republic circuit with a time that put the Spaniard firmly on top of the qualifying timesheets, yet still didn’t approach his stunning lap of Friday morning. A morning rain put the field on wet tires for the third free practice session, but it also washed off some of the rubber buildup on the track, reducing traction a bit and forcing everyone to struggle for grip. Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo found some additional speed to put himself in second spot on the grid, while Pedrosa’s teammate Casey Stoner managed to take the last position on the front row after crashing in the morning.
Ben Spies is still suffering from numbness resulting from the pinched nerve in his neck, but somehow coped well enough to grab fourth spot on the second factory Yamaha, while San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Marco Simoncelli came in just ahead of vastly improved Valentino Rossi on the Ducati, whose sixth-place qualifying position is his best of the year. Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Colin Edwards finished the session in eighth spot after going back to last year’s settings, with Nicky Hayden managing to put in a quick lap to qualify ninth.
Unfortunately for wildcard John Hopkins, his promising weekend on the Rizla Suzuki came to an early end when he crashed in the wet morning practice. What appeared to be a harmless front-end lowside turned badly when he caught his hand as he slid into the gravel trap outside the turn. Hopkins suffered three fractured fingers on his right hand, with one separation at the knuckle making it impossible for him to grip the throttle, ruling him out for the weekend.
Dani Pedrosa continued his...
Dani Pedrosa continued his dominating form at Brno, easily qualifying on pole ahead of his rivals.
Despite his definite advantage over the rest of the field, Pedrosa was his usual guarded self about the race’s prospects. “I’m happy with my performance up to now,” said Pedrosa. “We did a good job, yeah, I’m surprised also, but we need to keep our feet on the ground, there’s still the race to go. I think our rivals are still improving so we have to keep focused on the race and keep improving the bike a little more. Today the track seems to be a little worse than yesterday because of the rain this morning, but hopefully we can get some grip for tomorrow and improve our pace. For sure tomorrow is going to be difficult.”
Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo managed...
Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo managed to find some improvements and qualify in second spot for the Brno MotoGP race.
Lorenzo was glad to have found some speed, after struggling in Friday’s practice sessions in finding a setting to his liking. “I’m satisfied with the work the team has done last night,” Lorenzo said, “because on Friday the bike doesn’t work so well, especially on braking, I lost so many tenths (of a second) there. So today with much more confidence on braking, I could lessen the gap between me and Dani and finish in front of Casey, which is a good result, and tomorrow we have many more options for the race than yesterday. We finally decided to try the soft front; we couldn’t improve the time for one lap, but the second, third, and fourth lap this tire is much more confident feeling and I could keep a more constant pace, so maybe for tomorrow we will use the soft front. Dani seems really strong at this track, he dominated every practice even though we are much closer now. Of course our concern is Casey (Stoner) who is leading the championship, and we need to take some points from him.”
Casey Stoner crashed in the...
Casey Stoner crashed in the wet morning practice but came back to qualify in third spot at Brno.
Stoner shrugged off the morning crash, even if its cause baffled him. “Yeah, we went out and into the second lap going into the braking point, the front just locked up,” said the Australian, who is soon to become a father with the news that wife Adriana is pregnant with their first child. “Felt like it was locked up for quite some time, released the brake and the bike just went down, so I was little surprised by that, it was a little bit scary, especially second lap in the wet, not really understanding why it happened in a straight line. We picked ourselves up and tried to improve the bike a little bit in the wet, and by the end of the session we were fastest, so we were pretty happy with way it went in the end. But this afternoon we’ve struggled a little bit more than what we’d like; all the dry sessions this weekend, we never really felt like we were on the pace, and we don’t feel comfortable with the bike at the moment, so we’ve got some big changes to make tomorrow and see if we can get that bike working a little better.”
When asked about his setup issues, Stoner responded, “It’s basically rear grip, but also front feeling, we’re just not getting any feedback from the front, even if the bike’s turning well and doing everything right, I can’t understand where the front is or how much harder I can push. So we’ll have to work on that tonight and see if we can get a little more front feeling because everything we’ve done today to improve that, we’ve just created chatter. And with chattering, we can’t really ride on a fast track like this, so we’ve got some work to do.”
Despite still suffering the...
Despite still suffering the effects of a pinched nerve in his neck, Ben Spies managed to qualify in fourth spot at Brno.
Although he was somehow magically able to pull a quick enough lap to qualify fourth, Spies knows if his condition doesn’t improve that he may have a long day tomorrow. “Definitely had to pull it together (to get fourth spot), I was struggling all day today,” admitted Spies. “Every day it’s been getting better for sure, but where I want it to be…just hope we can put 22 laps together tomorrow, it’s going to be tough. But the bike’s working good, I feel like we have some good speed, I’m just struggling to maintain the lap time for sure. Everybody kinda knows about it, but we’re giving it everything we can. Fourth today I’m happy with, inside of the second row is a good start position; we just gotta ride 100% tomorrow until we can’t anymore. I think we’ll be able to get through the race OK, it’s not…I’m not happy about it, but we gotta do what we can do. I can do about four hard laps, I’ve done six; I’m trying to get the best I can out of the bike to make sure the speed’s there, but also I’m trying to save myself for the race as much as I can. I could wake up tomorrow and be 100% or I could wake up and feel the same, but I’m trying to stay positive and be ready for tomorrow. We gotta be realistic and give it the best we can, but it’s going to be a tough race no matter what, but I think we can do alright.”
Valentino Rossi was happy...
Valentino Rossi was happy to qualify in sixth spot, his best qualifying performance of the season on the Ducati.
Rossi was upbeat about his qualifying performance, which was a definite improvement from the past few races—but far from where he wants to be, obviously. “You know, sixth position is nothing fantastic, but I am satisfied because we work better during the practice and we reduce the gap from the top guys step by step,” said Rossi. “To be on the second row is a good start because it’s our best qualifying of the season and we are not so far from the Hondas and some Yamahas. We made some modifications to the bike today, front position, my position on the bike, and I feel better on the front, I can push more on the entry. So I enjoy today, and the sixth place is not so bad. Still I have some problem in acceleration, some slide, so if we can fix this problem by tomorrow, we can have a good race. I hope it is dry for tomorrow because the weather look is not fantastic. Tire choice, I think that we will use the soft in the rear, and we have some modify for increase the rear grip and the speed in the change of direction.”
After struggling with major...
After struggling with major issues on Friday, Colin Edwards went back to a previous setup that allowed him to qualify in eighth spot at Brno.
Edwards was glad to be in eighth spot on the grid, after his struggles on Friday. “Yeah, we were in a lot of trouble yesterday,” related the Texan. “I don’t know, throughout the year you start trying out new parts and new things, head pipe angles and linkages, swingarm length…you’re always trying to find that next little improvement. We’ve found something that I think we kind of stuck with for a race or two a little too long. So we came back to more or less last year’s type of setting, which we used in the beginning of this year. I was just on marbles yesterday, I had no idea what was going on; I felt like a deer on linoleum, just sliding around everywhere. Today we made a big change, and now we’re squatted down and putting a load on the tire and it feels great. I don’t ever like to say that I’d like to finish the race where I qualified would be acceptable, but I got a bunch of factory guys in front of me, and I think Valentino (Rossi), I think we can possibly challenge him…Simoncelli, we’ll have to wait and see. If we could get into the top six, I’d be really, really happy.”
In contrast to Rossi's improvement,...
In contrast to Rossi's improvement, Nicky Hayden continues to struggle with the Ducati, even though he was able to qualify in ninth spot at Brno.
Hayden was feeling better about the Ducati, but still has a lot of work to do in order to get anywhere near the front runners. “In the end, it was much better than how it had been going,” said Hayden somewhat diplomatically. “This morning the rain hurt us because we needed that time to try and figure out some stuff in the dry, because yesterday we had found no direction and were not going forward. In the rain the bike was really good out of the gate; we just put our normal wet setting in, and normally I need a little bit of time in the rain, but I was never outside the top five the whole session. But then in qualifying it was the opposite; I was buried the whole way, and then with about 15 minutes to go we tried something. I could at least push a bit. I was only able to pull out one or two laps there. I know tomorrow’s going to be a long, hard day, I’m expecting that, so hopefully we can go in that direction and we’ll see.”
Part of the problem appears to be the Ducati’s inability to use the hard rear tire option. “I tried the hard rear yesterday in the afternoon, but there just wasn’t enough grip, especially the left side,” said Hayden. “Hopefully Bridgestone sees we’re just running softs everywhere, qualifying, race, all weekend, so hopefully they understand why. The hard tires haven’t been an option the last few races for us. The softs are working plenty good, I’ve done a lot of laps on them, and don’t expect any problems so unless we use rain tires…
“Some of the long corners I’m losing a lot of time trying to get the bike to turn. Some of the chicanes I lose a little bit in the first and it just exaggerates the problem in the next one, so hopefully we can do a lot better job tomorrow.”
Wildcard John Hopkins will...
Wildcard John Hopkins will unfortunately be forced to miss the Brno race after suffering injuries in a morning practice crash to his right hand that require surgery.
“Disappointed is the only word that can sum up how I feel,” lamented Hopkins about his lost weekend. “I have to apologize to the whole team for making such a stupid mistake out there this morning. It was the smallest crash under braking in the wet conditions and as I slid along I kept my hand on the ground to try and slow me down, but as soon as I hit the gravel it went in and mangled my hand. I’ve fractured three fingers on my right hand. The index and middle finger are just normal fractures that probably wouldn’t have kept me off the bike, but the third finger has separated and split down the middle from the knuckle. I can’t bend the finger or both bones could come through the skin, so it would have been impossible to hold on to the bike. I think things went very well yesterday and I had every intention of being able to make another step forward today. I wish I could have gone out and achieved a good result and shown Suzuki they have a really good machine with great potential.”
Brno MotoGP qualifying results:
1. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Honda 1:56.591
2. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Yamaha 1:56.704
3. Casey Stoner (AUS) Honda 1:56.860
4. Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha 1:57.178
5. Marco Simoncelli (ITA) Honda 1:57.351
6. Valentino Rossi (ITA) Ducati 1:57.367
7. Andrea Dovisioso (ITA) Honda 1:57.442
8. Colin Edwards (USA) Yamaha 1:57.676
9. Nicky Hayden (USA) Ducati 1:57.721
10. Hiroshi Aoyama (JPN) Honda 1:57.784
11. Cal Crutchlow (GBR) Yamaha 1:57.797
12. Toni Elias (SPA) Honda 1:58.245
13. Hector Barbera (SPA) Ducati 1:58.273
14. Alvaro Bautista (SPA) Suzuki 1:58.274
15. Randy De Puniet (FRA) Ducati 1:58.889
16. Loris Capirossi (ITA) Ducati 1:58.938
17. Karel Abraham (CZE) Ducati 1:58.946
DNS John Hopkins (USA) Suzuki