With Pedrosa topping the time sheets in the second and final free practice session, the intentions of the Spaniard became obvious. However, it was Yamaha Factory rider Jorge Lorenzo who snatched pole position in the dying seconds of today's qualifying session, with a lap time of 1'44.969.
After missing the last
three races due to his injury, Australian Casey Stoner made progress throughout all four sessions, but had taken the wrong direction in the set up of
his Repsol Honda machine in the latter stage of Saturday's qualifying session. Although Stoner still not
feeling comfortable on his bike, he was able to lap three tenths under
the circuit record (1'45.745) and hopes to give his team a good result from
seventh on the grid tomorrow.
Dani Pedrosa
"In the end I didn't know the lap times of the others and I was just pushing as hard as I could to get a place on the front row of the grid because on my last exit I was eighth. I had many problems with chattering in qualifying and we still don't know why. Everything was OK during the free practices but this afternoon, it was hard to do the lap time. Finally the second place is good enough and I hope we can avoid this chattering in the race tomorrow. The key point will be to choose the correct rear tyre and be consistent for the whole race because the pace will be fast.”
Casey Stoner
"To be honest I thought we had a shot at the front row today. The first soft tyre we used we achieved a pretty good time and I knew we had something extra in reserve, in both myself and the bike. We thought with the second soft tyre we would improve but unfortunately we went in the wrong direction with the bike and I had no rear grip, so I decided to play it safe and not push too hard. Physically I'm a little sore but not so bad, I'm just struggling to lift the bike out of the right hand corners and it's making setting up the bike more difficult than it should be. My team can see that my lean angles are nowhere near what they usually are. I can't get my foot out of the way, therefore I can't lean the bike over enough or pick it up quickly on the exit of the corner. I'm not sure what to expect tomorrow, I'll try to get another good night's rest and do our best tomorrow.”
Press release courtesy of Repsol Honda Team.
Dani Pedrosa
"In the end I didn't know the lap times of the others and I was just pushing as hard as I could to get a place on the front row of the grid because on my last exit I was eighth. I had many problems with chattering in qualifying and we still don't know why. Everything was OK during the free practices but this afternoon, it was hard to do the lap time. Finally the second place is good enough and I hope we can avoid this chattering in the race tomorrow. The key point will be to choose the correct rear tyre and be consistent for the whole race because the pace will be fast.”
Casey Stoner
"To be honest I thought we had a shot at the front row today. The first soft tyre we used we achieved a pretty good time and I knew we had something extra in reserve, in both myself and the bike. We thought with the second soft tyre we would improve but unfortunately we went in the wrong direction with the bike and I had no rear grip, so I decided to play it safe and not push too hard. Physically I'm a little sore but not so bad, I'm just struggling to lift the bike out of the right hand corners and it's making setting up the bike more difficult than it should be. My team can see that my lean angles are nowhere near what they usually are. I can't get my foot out of the way, therefore I can't lean the bike over enough or pick it up quickly on the exit of the corner. I'm not sure what to expect tomorrow, I'll try to get another good night's rest and do our best tomorrow.”
Press release courtesy of Repsol Honda Team.