The weather continued to do its worst today and the large amount of water on the track and the heavy rain prevented the three qualifying sessions from being held this afternoon. Therefore, in order to define the starting grids of the three categories, the race directors have taken the best combined time from the three free practice sessions. With this solution, Andrea Dovizioso will start from the third row tomorrow with the seventh best time and Dani Pedrosa from the fourth with the twelfth.
Yesterday did not give rise to much optimism in the ranks of the Repsol Honda Team, with Dani Pedrosa near the bottom of the timesheets while he recovered the pace after returning to the competition and Andrea Dovizioso still not managing to feel comfortable with the set-up of his machine. This morning, the situation started to turn around and in the third free practice session, Dovizioso registered the third best time and Pedrosa, the eighth. Therefore, the ranks of the Repsol Honda Team started to feel optimistic at the end of the last free practice session and got ready to tackle the qualifying session.
However, then the rain came, the qualifying session was cancelled and the valid times came from combining the three free practice sessions. As some riders were faster yesterday afternoon than today, finally, Andrea Dovizioso will start from the third row and Pedrosa – who gradually recovered his confidence, session by session – will do so from the fourth.With the entire paddock looking to the sky and teams and riders pending the weather forecast, it is expected to improve tomorrow, although in Estoril, where the weather is always unstable, nobody can guarantee anything.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’50.824 sec, 26 laps, 109 KM >> Audio
“We were improving step-by-step this morning in terms of my lap times and my position and I think we could have continued that this afternoon, so it’s a pity the qualifying session was cancelled – although of course there was no alternative. At the beginning of the morning session I didn’t feel particularly confident on the machine but I decided with the team to stay out and keep lapping to get more time on the bike. It was a good decision because we made some good progress in the second half of the session. We wanted to move further forward on the grid this afternoon and I think this should have been possible if the session had gone ahead. Tomorrow we don’t know what the weather will do, but what I do know is that from 12th I have to make a great start – wet or dry. I’m not thinking about what Casey and Valentino will do tomorrow – all I can do is give my maximum and hope to keep any loss as small as possible”.
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’50.007 sec, 26 laps, 109 KM >> Audio
“I’m sorry we couldn’t have the qualifying session because our target was to get a front row starting position and, since I was third in the wet this morning, that looked achievable for us. This morning we improved a lot in terms of our set-up and electronics, and I was able to maintain a fast and consistent pace thanks to some important changes on the machine. It was really impossible to have qualifying though – there was no way we could ride in those conditions. Tomorrow the weather forecast seems to be for a wet warm-up and a dry race – and if this happens it really means the race will be a lottery because no one has had any practice time in the dry. Also for me this is a track where it takes some time to find a good rhythm, so really I hope for a dry warm-up session and a dry race”.
