Sepang experiences a stormy second practice day.
Down-pouring rain on the Malayan track forces the cancellation of the three timed afternoon sessions. Dani Pedrosa made 18 laps in the morning despite the intense pain in his knee and will start tomorrow from the second row.
The heavy rainfall at the Malayan racetrack at the end of the morning’s 250cc free practice session changed the plans of teams and riders. And it changed them so much that the result was something that had never happened before: the qualifying sessions of the afternoon had to be cancelled due to the large amount of water on the asphalt in Sepang.Dani Pedrosa draw the attention of the attending media at the beginning of the third free practice session of the Malaysian Grand Prix at 10 o’clock in the morning. With pain and evident problems to adapt to his bike, Dani took part in the practice session after being allowed to do so by the doctors. Pedrosa got the pace progressively on his bike, making constant stops at the Repsol Honda Team garage. At the end of the free session, Pedrosa had made a total of 18 laps, while his class mates had made more than 20. His fastest time, made in the last lap, was almost six seconds slower than the overall fastest time set by Valentino Rossi. After the free practices, Dani went back to the Clínica Mobile to get ready for the afternoon qualifying session.
But the afternoon was filled with surprises. In the last minutes of the 250cc free practices, an intense and persistent rainfall over the Malaysian track flooded several corners and made it impossible to continue with the practice session. Finally the Race Direction took the difficult decision to cancel the afternoon’s qualifying sessions.To establish the starting grid of the MotoGP class – the times of yesterdays’ qualifying practices were used for the 125cc and 250cc classes -, they added the fastest times of the three free practice sessions. Consequently Valentino Rossi got on pole position and Dani Pedrosa who had set the second fastest time yesterday before his crash, will be starting from fifth place. Most of the times used were those of the third free practice session held this morning. Nicky Hayden, who had a bad day yesterday, recovered this morning and thus was able to get a place on the first row after setting the second fastest time of the third free practice session.After what happened this afternoon, both riders of the Repsol Honda Team 250cc. will start tomorrow from the second row of the grid, with Shuhei Aoyama seventh and team mate Martín Cárdenas eighth.
In the 125cc, Joan Olivé will keep yesterday’s fourth place thus getting a place on the first row of the grid being able to fight for a place on the podium tomorrow. The other Repsol sponsored rider in the class, Pablo Nieto will start from the fourth row after finishing yesterday’s qualifying practice in thirteenth position.
Rider´s comments
Nicky Hayden,
22 laps, 122’05 Km:
‘I felt a lot better today than yesterday – we made some changes overnight that really helped. Hopefully we can continue in that direction tomorrow and be strong in the race. It’s good to be on the front row, especially if it rains. I think maybe the grid should have been decided on championship point – no I’m joking. If I’d have been ninth I’m sure I wouldn’t have been so happy but perhaps we have to come up with something in the rule book to make things clear in this situation. Hopefully tomorrow we can make it up to the fans and put on a good show for them because there were some die-hard fans who waited around all day and got teased a few times when the bikes would fire up only for the session to be cancelled at 4.15. We’ve still got a little work to do to be on the pace tomorrow, but we’ll use the warm up and give it all we’ve got in the race.’
Dani Pedrosa,
18 laps, 99’86 Km:
‘This afternoon I think for the first time in my career the rain has brought me luck! I couldn’t have imagined starting from fifth position if it had been a dry qualifying session, so that was a big present for me. This morning I was just testing my performance on the bike – for sure it wasn’t 100 per cent but I was able to ride and change gear ok. It felt so-so – not really bad, but not so good either. I don’t know about my race pace. I think the bike set-up is about ready although I haven’t had time to test all the race tyres I would have liked to. Tomorrow morning I will have to practice the start because I have some pain in both legs, and also I’m very small which won’t help. Tomorrow I will see how I feel to make a decision if I have to have any painkillers before the race. I’ll do my best. I have to say thank you to everybody because I have received a lot of help, especially in the Clinica Mobile because they are taking good care of me, and my team has worked very hard too.’
Shuhei Aoyama,
15 laps, 83’22 Km:
‘This has been a very, very strange day. I’m going to start from the second row tomorrow but I actually was expecting to improve today, so I’m not really happy. Moreover, we haven’t been able to finish setting up the suspensions because we haven’t had enough time. We only had two sessions yesterday and the rain showed up during this morning’s session as well. At least we were able to decide on the tyres this morning. We just needed more time to work on everything, so I’m a little bit worried. Let’s see what happens tomorrow, we’ll try to finish up some things during the warm-up if we can; and I obviously hope for a dry race.’
Martín Cárdenas,
14 laps, 77’67 Km:
‘It has been a rather unusual day. It started to rain at the end of the morning session and then they cancelled the afternoon session, so they are taking the times set yesterday. But I had a good position yesterday, second row, actually my best qualifying so far, so I’m happy. I don’t think that the fact of not being able to practice more is bad for me, it’s actually the same for all of us. Since I had made a good qualifying yesterday, there’s no problem. We have a good setup and we tested some tyres in the morning that we think will be the ones for the race, so we have everything ready.’
Standings
MotoGP
- V.Rossi (Yamaha) 2.00.605
- N.Hayden (Honda) 2.01.043
- L.Capirossi (Ducati) 2.01.067
- K.Roberts (KR) 2.01.898
- D.Pedrosa (Honda) 2.02.021
250
- H.Barberá (Aprilia) 2’08.266
- J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 2’08.404
- H.Aoyama (KTM) 2’08.556
- R.Locatelli (Aprilia) 2’08.902
- A.Dovizioso (Honda) 2’08.945
- S.Aoyama (Honda) 2’09.414
- M.Cárdenas (Honda) 2’09.415
125
- A.Bautista (Aprilia) 2’12.846
- M.Kallio (KTM) 2’13.974
- M.Pasini (Aprilia) 2’14.121
- J.Olivé (Aprilia) 2’14.681
- H.Faubel (Aprilia) 2’14.711
