The Repsol rider sets the fastest time in the Czech Republic Grand Prix. He will share the first row with Lorenzo and his team mate Casey Stoner, third. Andrea Dovizioso, seventh.
After the great level shown by Dani Pedrosa yesterday in the first day of practice at the Brno Circuit, the Repsol rider confirmed his excellent performance by setting the fastest time of the Qualifying session held this afternoon. Pedrosa will start from the first position of a grid where Casey Stoner will also be in the first row and Andrea Dovizioso in the third after the seventh fastest time he achieved today.
The rain that fell during the night and part of the morning had an effect on the third free practice, which was held with the track still wet, despite the rain having stopped. Under those conditions, at the beginning of the session Casey Stoner crashed on the third corner when he had only done two laps. Despite having to be stopped in the box for some minutes, the Australian completed 13 laps and set the fastest time, while Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso finished in fourth and eighth position respectively.
In the qualifying session and with the track completely dry, Pedrosa took the initiative once again. He was the first one to ride in the 1 minute 57 seconds and, as it happened yesterday, Casey Stoner was the one to push the Spaniard to do his best, as he was the only rider able to lap in the same second as his team mate. As minutes went by, Jorge Lorenzo and even Ben Spies started to set similar times, although 15 minutes from the end Pedrosa recovered the first position on the times sheet, with a time of 1 minute, 56 seconds and 660 thousandths.
Jorge Lorenzo tried to improve his time, but despite keeping a good pace for several laps he was not able to get the pole position, and also saw how his countryman improved his time in a last lap riding to the limit. In the end, Pedrosa finished 113 thousandths ahead of the Yamaha rider and 269 ahead of his team mate at the Repsol Honda Team, Casey Stoner.
Andrea Dovizioso will start from the third row, as, with a fastest time of 1 minute, 57 seconds and 442 thousandths, he finished less than one second behind his team mate.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
FP3 – 2:07.652, 18 laps, 97 km.
QP – 1:56.591, 25 laps, 135 km.
“It’s my first pole of the year and also after a long time, so I’m very happy for that. The weekend has been pretty good for us so far, the bike is working well and I’m feeling good physically as well. We made only a few small changes on the bike and this allowed me to concentrate more on my riding, so let’s hope we are able to keep the pace tomorrow and fight for a good result. This is the most important thing and we need to keep our feet on the ground because the rivals are close. I think we can still improve the bike a little, especially on the chassis side to have better grip, even though I guess that the rain this morning affected the conditions on track which made it more slippery”.
Andrea Dovizioso >> Audio
FP3 – 2:07.877, 17 laps, 92 km.
QP – 1:57.442, 25 laps, 135 km.
“After having struggled yesterday with the engine brake set up, today we went back to the old specification that we used up until the Italian Grand Prix. The rain fall from last night and this morning affected the track surface and this afternoon there was less grip and the references changed compared to yesterday. We will continue working, in particular on the front, because under braking we are on the limit. I also have to ride with more fluidity. We will keep on working also in the warm up to improve for the race. The pace is not so bad and it’s not impossible to fight for the podium. The race will be hard, with many battles so it will be important to make a good start”.
Casey Stoner >> Audio
FP3 – 2:07.321, 13 laps, 70 km.
QP – 1:56.860, 20 laps, 108 km.
“We hoped after yesterday that we could improve the feeling in the bike this morning but unfortunately it was a wet session, so we couldn’t use it as we would have liked to. Also, the session didn’t start too well with a fast crash in turn three which lost us some time and obviously dented my confidence a little. Then this afternoon we started to get a little more feedback from the bike, but all in all we didn’t really make a big step forward or improve it significantly from yesterday’s first session. We seem to be getting more and more chatter as the weekend progresses and the more I push the more it increases and the slower I get, so it’s a little frustrating. I felt qualifying could have been better, we almost lapped with the same time on old and new tyres but in general we have a lot of work to do. We’re obviously happy with front row, but we’re not really where we want to be with the bike and there is still a lot of work to do. We’re looking forward to tomorrow and I’m sure we can find some improvements in time for the race”.
