First pole for Repsol rider Dani Pedrosa in MotoGP.
Nicky Hayden completes a successful day for the Repsol Honda Team getting the fifth place on the starting grid. Shuhei Aoyama third in the 250cc.
Superb performance of Dani Pedrosa today in China, who has known how to overcome the difficult, changing weather conditions to finally achieve, together with the Repsol Honda Team his first pole position in MotoGP. In his fourth qualifying session n the premier class, Pedrosa has had a faultless performance. The timed practices started with Pedrosa quickly getting a place among the top riders. 35 minutes before the end of the practice, the rain showed up just when Pedrosa was one second behind Gibernau.
The riders decided to get back to heir garages to wait for the rain to stop and fortunately 15 minutes before the end, the track had dried completely. With the MotoGP riders back in action, all of them pushed harder to finish with the set-up work and prepare the fight for the pole on qualifying tyres. Dani Pedrosa knew how to play his cards and get the best out of his tyres, moving up to the top of the sheets and staying there despite the several tries of his rivals. The current leader of the World Championship and team mate to Dani Pedrosa in the Repsol Honda Team, North American rider Nicky Hayden, also knew to overcome the complications of this strange qualifying session, setting the fifth fastest time, thus taking a place in the second row of tomorrow’s starting grid.In the quarter-of-a litre class, the good performance of Shuhei Aoyama yesterday in the race was completed today with the third fastest time of the Japanese rider in the second and definitive timed session.
The Repsol rider, who set the tenth fastest time in the morning, managed to find, together with his team, a good setting for his bike that allowed him to be part of the fight for the top positions in the final part of the qualifying session. Best Honda rider behind Barbera (pole) and Lorenzo, Aoyama’s main aim for tomorrow is finishing the race and scoring as many points as possible. Team mate Sebastián Porto did not have such a good day finishing both practice sessions in back positions (fourteenth in the free session and twenty-second in the timed practice. He will take the start for the race from the sixth row of the starting grid. In the minor class, Bradley Smith did not have a good day and had problems with the lacking traction in the rear tyre of his bike did not allow him to finish better than 30th on the grid, a very back position that forces him to make a good start tomorrow if he wants to have the chance to recover races during the race.Riders´comments
Dani Pedrosa,
40 laps, 211’24 Km.
‘It’s really good to be on pole position and I’m really happy because this time I went quickly on qualifying tyres which is something I haven’t managed so well in the previous qualifying sessions. I don’t really know what was different today – it was not one specific thing – I just felt more confident with the tyres, so I am happy. The session was strange because it was dry, then it rained, then it was dry again so maybe not everyone was able to perform at the same level. One important thing is that we couldn’t test the race tyres as much as we’d have liked. Anyway, I’ll just be looking to make a good start and have a good race tomorrow. I’m not thinking about the win yet, just to perform at my maximum.’
Nicky Hayden,
41 laps, 216’521 Km.
‘The shower in the middle of qualifying screwed things up for us a little bit so we’ve still got a few unanswered questions for tomorrow. Last year it rained a lot too, and it’s the first year here with this new bike so we could have used some more dry time to sort some stuff out, but everyone’s in that same boat. My biggest issue right now is with engine braking unsettling the bike into corners. This morning we were working on that, and it’s a little bit frustrating but we’ll come ready to get our heads down and see if we can sort something in warm-up tomorrow. It feels good to be leading the championship and I’m happy with my run of consistency, so I’m looking for that next win’.
Shuhei Aoyama,
39 laps, 205’959 Km
‘Today I’m happy and really satisfied, because we’ve made some good practices. I have managed to calm down, everything was much easier today and I set a good time without using qualifying tyres. We have a good set-up, the tyres have been chosen and we have an optimal position on the starting grid, so we should be able to do a good race tomorrow. My aim is no other than finishing and scoring as many points as possible, without risking too much, because I don’t want to make mistakes again.’
Sebastián Porto,
26 laps, 137’306 Km.
‘Very complicated, the truth is that there is not much to say. It got really complicated and even more with the rain. All in all a complicated day. The engine did not work well, the chassis had also a lot of problems. We made a lot of changes from the morning to the afternoon, but it was just worse. I’ve spent a lot of time in the garage, trying always to improve, but when things are complicated from the beginning it’s hard to improve. It’s a shame because we always try to improve, but the more we touch the worse it gets. We’ll go a bit back to what normally works and tomorrow, we’ll try to do the best we can.’
Bradley Smith,
29 laps, 153’149 Km.
‘Today didn’t go so well. We put an H tyre in for qualifying which was really good but it was unstable in the rear so every time I got on the gas it flicked me off the seat. I never actually felt confident at all. I pushed on the last lap and it was going quite well but the tyre just kept on letting loose I just couldn’t turn in the fast corners and lost so much time. It’s my worst qualifying position so far, it’s nothing to be happy about maybe. This will give finally give me something to concentrate on in the race and try to get a good start. I’ll actually crack on in the first laps. I’m looking forward to it, even though I’m so far back I’ll try to make a good start and see what happens.’
Standings
MotoGP
- D.Pedrosa (Honda) 1’59.009
- J.Hopkins (Suzuki) 1’59.373
- C.Edwards (Yamaha) 1’59.383
- S.Nakano (Kawasaki) 1’59.570
- N.Hayden (Honda) 1’59.574
250
- H.Barberá (Aprilia) 2’05.781
- J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 2’05.948
- S.Aoyama (Honda) 2’06.677
- A.Dovizioso (Honda) 2’06.936
- A. de Angelis (Aprilia) 2’07.073
21. S.Porto (Honda) 2’09.818
125
- .Kallio (KTM) 2’11.572
- L.Pesek (Derbi) 2’11.934
- J.Simón (KTM) 2’11.953
- A.Bautista (Aprilia) 2’11.990
- G.Talmacsi (Honda) 2’12.441
30. B.Smith (Honda) 2’15.222
