Nicky Hayden, Sebastián Porto and Pablo Nieto confirm their podium possibilities during the second qualifying practice
Hayden sets the fourth fastest time in MotoGP, Porto second in 250 GP and Pablo Nieto sixth after highly contended 125 GP practices
The second qualifying session has been far more positive for both Repsol Honda Team riders. Nicky Hayden has been working throughout the session in order to choose the best settings for his bike. He kept himself around the tenth position during the whole session but decided to use qualifying tyres in the last five minutes to go for a faster time. He managed to take the lead of the standings, but Rossi, fastest, Gibernau and Biaggi finally overtook him. With his fourth place and the new regulations with regard to the configuration of the MotoGP starting grid -only three riders per row-, Hayden will be starting tomorrow from the second row. His teammate Alex Barros, twelfth fastest after yesterday’s practices, improved the time set yesterday by a bit more than a second and moved up to the eighth position. He will be starting tomorrow from the third row of the grid. Rubén Xaus, who set the twelfth fastest time in the morning suffered a light crash in the afternoon that delayed the set-up work, setting him back to the sixteenth spot on the grid.
The 250 GP is still in the hands of two riders. Frenchman Randy De Puniet and the Argentinean Repsol rider Sebastián Porto have been today one step ahead of the rest of the pack. Porto was fastest in the free practice, but in the afternoon, the Frenchman finally imposed his pace, keeping yesterday’s pole position with an advantage of only three hundreds of a second over the Argentinean. The fight for the remaining two places on the front row of the grid, carried out behind these two riders, was protagonised by Poggiali, and Pedrosa, followed by Fonsi Nieto, who finally had to settle for the sixth position and will be starting from the second row of the grid.
In the minor class, Pablo Nieto improved his best time of yesterday by over a second, although the new time has not allowed him to keep yesterday’s provisional fifth place. However he will be still starting from the second row of the grid. Sixth fastest of the timed practices, the Repsol rider used both practice sessions to prepare the race, working on the chassis of his Aprilia to find the right setting to let him keep the pace of the leading pack. His teammate, rookie Sergio Gadea, showed again a good performance on his first visit at the South African circuit of Welkom. Twenty-eighth yesterday, Gadea improved his time by almost three seconds, moving up to the twenty-fourth place of the starting grid.
