It was a tough qualifying session for the Ducati team at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Japan, with both Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden improving their performance compared to yesterday's and today's practice sessions.
The Italian will start tomorrow's race from the third row (ninth place), while Hayden is only one place behind him on the grid.
Rossi, who has only four more races left with Ducati, will look for a couple of final setting refinements, while his American team mate will try to make some changes in order to improve his consistency.
Valentino Rossi
“The position, ninth place, certainly isn’t the greatest, as I had hoped to start from the second row. Still, I think that we worked well. We improved in every session, and again in qualifying today we made good progress. 1:45.9 is a nice time, half a second faster than last year, even though it wasn’t enough to be further forward. Anyway, we managed to lap at a decent pace and more consistently, and that’s positive. Tomorrow we’ll see if it will be enough and if we’ll be able to move up some positions. We’ll also have to decide tomorrow which tyre to use, depending on what the temperature is.”
Nicky Hayden
“Today didn’t really go any easier than yesterday. I had some problems at the start of qualifying and couldn’t get a good rhythm, but once I started putting the soft tyres in, the grip improved and the bike felt better and better. Then at the end, I had a lot of front chatter that was holding me back, including on my best lap, and there were a lot of waving yellow flags on my last run that didn’t help. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get in a good lap, and I didn’t have a good rhythm either. Still, the team is working hard and hopefully tomorrow we can improve and try to do a decent race.”
Press release courtesy of Ducati Team.
The Italian will start tomorrow's race from the third row (ninth place), while Hayden is only one place behind him on the grid.
Rossi, who has only four more races left with Ducati, will look for a couple of final setting refinements, while his American team mate will try to make some changes in order to improve his consistency.
Valentino Rossi
“The position, ninth place, certainly isn’t the greatest, as I had hoped to start from the second row. Still, I think that we worked well. We improved in every session, and again in qualifying today we made good progress. 1:45.9 is a nice time, half a second faster than last year, even though it wasn’t enough to be further forward. Anyway, we managed to lap at a decent pace and more consistently, and that’s positive. Tomorrow we’ll see if it will be enough and if we’ll be able to move up some positions. We’ll also have to decide tomorrow which tyre to use, depending on what the temperature is.”
Nicky Hayden
“Today didn’t really go any easier than yesterday. I had some problems at the start of qualifying and couldn’t get a good rhythm, but once I started putting the soft tyres in, the grip improved and the bike felt better and better. Then at the end, I had a lot of front chatter that was holding me back, including on my best lap, and there were a lot of waving yellow flags on my last run that didn’t help. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get in a good lap, and I didn’t have a good rhythm either. Still, the team is working hard and hopefully tomorrow we can improve and try to do a decent race.”
Press release courtesy of Ducati Team.