The Repsol rider also leads the second day of training in Britain and will start from the first position of a grid where Andrea Dovizioso will be fifth
Casey Stoner’s dominant performance yesterday repeated itself in the two training sessions held today, where the Australian was once again able to outperform his rivals. The Repsol rider will start from the first position of the grid for the fourth time in six races, a row ahead of his team mate, Andrea Dovizioso, who will start from fifth position.
Although the forecast announced rain for today, the weather in this area is unpredictable and the rain finally did not appear, allowing the two sessions to be held on dry tarmac and with a temperature of over 20ºC in the first free session and over 30ºC in the qualifying. Under these conditions, Casey Stoner was able to further improve his times, testing different set-ups for his Repsol Honda RC212V, and, although he saw their rivals getting closer in the times sheet, he finally stopped the clock with a fastest time of 2 minutes, 2 seconds and 20 thousandths, a register that no other rider was able to improve.
Steadily improving his times, Andrea Dovizioso secured the second row of tomorrow’s starting grid. The Repsol rider improved his times in more than one second compared to the third free session held in the morning and finished the day with a fastest time of 2 minutes, 3 seconds and 212 thousandths, a little over one second behind his team mate.
Andrea Dovizioso >> Audio
FP3 – 2:04.372, 19 laps, 112 km.
QP – 2:03.212, 25 laps, 148 km.
“Compared to this morning’s practice we improved the bike and I had quite a good feeling with my machine. We worked on the set up to have more control especially over the bumps and the different track surfaces. After 10 laps we managed a 2’03.8 with the hard tyres, which is not too bad. In the afternoon we were faster, but the others also improved a lot. We need to analyse the data and understand in which areas we can work to gain some tenths. Tomorrow we will begin from the second row and it will be very important to have a good start and maintain contact with the riders at the front”.
Casey Stoner >> Audio
FP3 – 2:03.487, 16 laps, 94 km.
QP – 2:02.020, 22 laps, 130 km.
“Everything has gone really well this weekend, we were lucky it stayed dry for qualifying but it doesn’t look so good for tomorrow. We’ve been competitive in each session and in various weather so I hope we have prepared ourselves for the race tomorrow, whatever the conditions. We haven’t changed too much from the set up we had in Barcelona and this afternoon was important for us to see what we could get from the hard tyre, what our pace is and if we can find some more edge grip, and we definitely found some more traction so I’m very happy with how everything is working at the moment. For the pole position we changed the set up and balance of the bike a little and on my best lap I closed the front a few times and wasn’t so confident with the balance, so I feel lucky to have got the pole but for sure it’s the best way to start the Grand Prix. We’ll see what the weather does tomorrow but I love this track and love this part of the UK and I’m really happy to be here!”.
