Highest evenness in Cheste in the face of the most decisive race of the season.
Nicky Hayden takes the fifth position and Dani Pedrosa is sixth after today’s qualifying practices, with tiniest differences between the top riders.
The Comunitat Valenciana Grand Prix will crown tomorrow the MotoGP World Champion in a race with no possible forecasts and a considerable evenness among all favourites. The qualifying practices staged today at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit have shown that the power is very even, considering that the top six riders are only within three tenths of a second. Nicky Hayden finished fifth and will start tomorrow from the second row of the grid, joined by Dani Pedrosa sixth-, but facing the race with highest hopes after a consistent practice session. Hayden set a lap time of 1.31.378, behind Rossi, Bayliss, Capirossi and Nakano and right ahead of Dani Pedrosa.
The North American rider who may clinch the world title tomorrow if he scores nine points more than Valentino Rossi, made a total of 29 laps setting consistent lap times. Dani Pedrosa covered thirty laps and both riders highlighted the close times that lead to a constant change in the leading positions during the last fifteen minutes of the session. Shuhei Aoyama and David de Gea finished todays timed session further away from the pole position. The Japanese rider was eighth and the Spaniard ninth, a bit more than one second behind the pole time set by Hiroshi Aoyama. In both cases, the aim of the 250cc Repsol riders is to achieve a good result in the last race of the season. The same plan is valid for Bradley Smith who, despite having two crashes today one in the morning and one in the afternoon- finished twenty-third and will try to finish tomorrow in the scoring positions.
Rider´s comments
Nicky Hayden:
Were starting on the second row and that means I need a lightning start tomorrow. Were definitely going all in for the win and itll be interesting because there are some guys going really fast out there. I need fast guys – but I dont need them to be faster than me! I didnt get on the front row where I needed to be which makes it a bit harder for me and Im not thrilled about that. On my last qualifier I had a good lap going and then had a bit of an issue with traffic in the last split when I had to pass a guy who was starting a lap while I was still on a hot one. It kinda got me off line and I lost a lot of time in the last split but I dont want to make excuses. We need to tweak on it tonight and see if I can find a little more pace. Regardless I just need to focus on the race and finish the year strong whatever happens happens.
Dani Pedrosa:
Today we had a good practice in the morning and made some more progress with the race set-up and tyre choice. We more-or-less have the set-up now although we still need to find a few tenths of a second because some riders improved their race pace in the afternoon. On the qualifying tyres this afternoon at first I was not so fast. I improved a little on my later runs and we finished in sixth place which is not perfect because Rossi is on pole. From the second row I will need to do a great start tomorrow and get away with the leaders. Its going to be a big race in front of many, many fans so Im really looking forward to it.
Shuhei Aoyama:
Im not so happy with the result. We had some problems with the suspensions. In fact, we managed to improve a bit compared to yesterday and this morning, but it was not enough, the problem is still there. The start position is not as good as I expected, second row, so I’ll have to make a good start in order to be able to keep up with the leading group. Ill give my best, lets see what happens.
David De Gea:
The afternoon practice was definitely not as good as in the morning, I was fifth in the morning and ninth in the afternoon. However, we all know that no rider gives it all during the free practices. But I think that the result is good, because we also had a problem during the practice that made us loose some time which I would have needed to get a better pace. Im really looking forward to the race tomorrow. The position is not bad; Im the first of the third row, so Im going to give it all. The bikes setting is very good and I also have a good pace, so Ill try to give my very best.’
Bradley Smith:
Well, today didnt go really as planned. The first crash was really my fault, I didnt allow the front tyre to warm enough. Its a left-handed circuit and I went into the right-hander and the heat wasnt quite in, my line wasnt quite correct and with this mix together I crashed. Then I went out with the second bike and didnt really do so well, though I did the best I could. We made some changes in the afternoon which I thought were ok but from the beginning the rear didnt feel quite right. When I crashed I didnt realise. It was all of a sudden. The rear slid and I went down. I went out on the second bike and improved on my lap time. After three crashes in the weekend and improving with bike number too, its a slightly positive thing, but negative overcomes everything positive this weekend. Tomorrow is when everything counts, so Ill try to make a really good start, give everything in the first few laps and try to keep going until the end, and well see what we can get.
Results
MotoGP
- V.Rossi (Yamaha) 1.31.002
- T.Bayliss (Ducati) 1.31.210
- L.Capirossi (Ducati) 1.31.307
- S.Nakano (Honda) 1.31.341
- N.Hayden (Honda) 1.31.378
- D.Pedrosa (Honda) 1.31.38
250
- H.Aoyama (KTM) 1.35.982
- J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 1.35.450
- A.de Angelis (Aprilia) 1.37.068
- R.Locatelli (Aprilia) 1.37.082
- M.Simoncelli (Honda) 1.36.724
- S.Aoyama (Honda) 1.37.002
9. D.de Gea (Honda) 1.37.004
125
- A.Bautista (Aprilia) 1.3.058
- H.Faubel (Aprilia) 1.39.288
- S.Gadea (Aprilia) 1.39.499
- M.Pasini (Aprilia) 1.39.667
- M.Kallio (KM) 1.39.698
23. B.Smith (Honda) 1.41.084
