The Repsol Honda Team rider sets the fastest time before the rain appeared. Dovizioso, fourth, will start from the second row and Pedrosa, eighth, from the third.
As it happened yesterday, the weather had his part again today in the second day of practice for the Italian Grand Prix. The other protagonist of the day was Casey Stoner, who set the fastest time of the weekend in the official qualifying session few minutes before it started raining. His team mates at the Repsol Honda Team, Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa, will start from the second and third row, respectively, after setting the fourth and eighth fastest times.
The day started again with sun and high temperatures, although it did not take long before the clouds arrived. Nevertheless, the last free practice session was held on a dry track and with a temperature over 30ºC. Casey Stoner was third, 654 thousandths behind Jorge Lorenzo, with Dovizioso in sixth position and Pedrosa twelfth.
When the all-important qualifying session started, the high probability of rain, which was falling lightly since the 125cc session, caused that all riders took the track determined to set their fastest times as soon as possible, as it was more than likely that the rain would intensify. Despite the uncertainty about the track conditions, Casey Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso soon improved the times set in the morning.
After the morning session, Stoner made some changes in his second bike, that immediately proved effective and, after showing a great pace on used tyres, set a time of 1 minute, 48 seconds and 034 thousandths. It was after 9 laps and just before it started to rain heavily and no rider was able to improve the times. 660 thousandths behind the Australian finished Andrea Dovizioso, who will lead the second row of tomorrow’s starting grid.
Dani Pedrosa also started the qualifying with a strong pace, looking for the best possible position and, in the first part of the session, he took the seventh place. The Repsol rider improved steadily and was finally able to ride almost a second faster than in the free sessions. His effort and outstanding performance today allowed him to take a position in the third row of the starting grid, despite not being in full physical form.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
FP3 – 1:50.296, 18 laps, 94 km.
QP – 1:49.398, 8 laps, 42 km.
“I was pretty lucky because the session was only 30 minutes old when the rain arrived and this is good for my injury. I made a few nice laps at the beginning of the session and I’m impressed with my lap time, eighth place on the grid is very good given my physical condition. I know that in the race it will be hard but I will try my best. I’ll try the maximum during the 23 laps, 100% in my situation and we will see how much I can achieve. This morning I felt better because I had a good rest last night, but for sure lap by lap the shoulder is getting more and more sore and this afternoon it’s been harder. I want to save energy during the warm up tomorrow morning to try to give the rest in the race”.
Andrea Dovizioso >> Audio
FP3 – 1:49.132, 19 laps, 100 km.
QP – 1:48.694, 12 laps, 63 km.
“I’m fairly satisfied with fourth position after the rain created strange track conditions, and I’m happy with our overall pace. Starting from the second row is fine on this track as there is a long straight before turn one. We made some modifications to improve my feeling with the front of the bike and as far as I could tell, they were positive. I wanted to do some laps with hard tyres in preparation for the race as on this track the tyre drops quite quickly, but it was not possible. The race will be long and physically demanding and it won’t be easy to maintain the rhythm for all twenty three laps, but we are ready for this challenge and look forward to fighting for a good result. I’m confident tomorrow the Italian riders will put on a good show for the public here in Mugello!”.
Casey Stoner >> Audio
FP3 – 1:48.734, 17 laps, 89 km.
QP – 1:48.034, 13 laps, 68 km.
“After the two sessions yesterday and also in FP3 this morning, we weren’t too happy with the set up we had, so we were looking to utilise all of this afternoon’s session. However, we made some changes to my second bike, which I made my fastest lap on and we’ve come out with a fantastic bike. I’m really happy to get pole here especially on a used tyre, the start of qualifying didn’t look too good, there was some rain and it was difficult to know how much to push so we went with soft tyres on front and rear to try and get a good lap time before the rain arrived. Once I was on track I realised the rain hadn’t affected conditions so much, so I came back in and made a change on the second bike and went back out with a hard front which gave us a little more stability and we managed to go a lot faster. The way the surface is working and everything in general is perfect, even with difficult conditions, we made the right choices at the right time”.
