In spite of the pleasant temperatures at this time of the year the morning began with a dense fog in the paddock and so the the sun took its time to warm up the track. That meant that the first free MotoGP practice, the second this weekend, saw lower temperatures than yesterday, 18ºC maximum for the atmosphere and 29ºC the track, and in consequence the riders were slower than yesterday. Andrea Dovizioso set the 5th best time and Dani Pedrosa 6th, both at a little over 7 tenths behind Lorenzo.
In the afternoon the sun was brighter and a strong wind blew up, the temperature at Laguna Seca also rose a little, 21ºC maximum for the atmosphere and 46ºC the track. The qualification session started well for the Repsol Honda Team riders who were up with the leaders the whole session and who led the classification after 20 minutes.
After refining the set up on their bikes and when half the session was completed the decisive moment came to fight for the front row positions. Andrea Dovizioso was the first Repsol Honda Team rider to use a softer Bridgestone compound on the rear tyre supplied for the weekend`s racing and the Italian went out when there were 30 minutes left followed by his Repsol Honda Team temmate 4 minutes later. This first attempt saw Dovizioso move up to 4th from 5th, whilst Pedrosa did the opposite and moved down to 5th position.
On the second attempt neither improved their times and on the third and final try Pedrosa recovered his 4th position and Dovizioso had to make do with 5th place and so the two Repsol Honda Team riders will start on the second row of the grid. Worth mentioning were the ugly falls for Jorge Lorenzo – pole at the end of the session – and for Stoner with two minutes left.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’22.113 secs, 69 laps, 249 km >> Audio
“We started this afternoon’s session really well and were able to lap consistently quickly straight away. Towards the end it became a little bit more difficult to improve the lap times because they tyres weren’t quite getting up to temperature and it was easy to make a mistake – we saw a few crashes out there later in the session. Fourth on the grid is not bad – I would have liked to be on the front row of course but fourth is ok. For tomorrow I’d like to improve our race pace by about three tenths per lap and that’s what we’ll work on in the warm-up. We did a lot of laps today on the tyres we’re planning to race on and this was one of our targets this weekend so I’m satisfied with that. It’s a short lap here and there isn’t any chance to rest which is going to make it a tough race tomorrow. You have to stay very focused and concentrated because it’s easy to make a mistake. In the sessions today I was mostly riding on a clear track, so I’m confident that if I can get away with the front group then this will help my rhythm and pace even more”.
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’22.135 secs, 68 laps, 245 km >> Audio
“As I expected this afternoon, with the higher temperatures and using the hard Bridgestones, I could improve my lap times by a decent amount over this morning. That’s good because these are the tyres we’ll use for the race and we’re in pretty good shape. I think I have a good race pace and starting from the second row is not bad. Towards the end of qualifying I think I could have gone even quicker with the last soft tyre but I was on track when Lorenzo crashed so I had to slow down because there were yellow flags.
Anyway I’m happy with qualifying and tomorrow we’ll aim to make a good start and stay with the leaders. In the heat of the race I think I should be able to grit my teeth and shave a few more tenths from my lap time too. This track is really special and the atmosphere here is unique, so and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s race. I hope we can be competitive and give the team a strong result before we head back to Europe”.
