The countdown is speeding up and there are now less than 24 hours before the first race of the 2009 World Motorcycling Championship starts. Tomorrow, Sunday, when the MotoGP race gets under way at 23:00 the Repsol Honda Team riders will start it with different objectives. For the Italian Andrea Dovizioso a podium finish is a real possibility, whilst for the Spansih rider Dani Pedrosa, finishing the race and getting a couple of valuable points will be the best end to a difficult weekend.
This afternoon at 19:05 the second free practice session started. Dani Pedrosa was once again around four seconds off the lead after he did a first set of 5 consecutive laps to see how his knee reacted. On the second set of 7 laps, his times started to get noticeably better. On the third and final set of laps one after another – 4 in total – his times dropped spectacularly until he was 12th just 2 seconds slower than the best time in the session, set by the Australian Casey Stoner. An important improvement by the Repsol Honda Team rider taking into account his physical limitations.
Rain also appeared at the circuit of Losail, during free practice in the afternoon as well as in the definitive qualifying session at night. That made the asphalt dirty once again and it lost a little of the grip it had gained from the tyres of the bikes during the free sessions in the 125cc, 250cc and MotoGP categories.
And it was in this type of weather that the first MotoGP qualifying session of the 2009 season was held. Dani Pedrosa continued to improve his times bit by bit throughout the session and was always classified between 12th and 14th places, When there were just eight minutes left Pedrosa, just like the rest of the MotoGP riders, chose to use the softest tyre compound available to him to try and lower his time. In the end the Repsol Honda Team rider set the 14th best time, but the most notable thing was the improved performance he was able to put in on his Repsol Honda RC212V. He managed to lower his time from yesterday by almost 4 seconds.
His teammate Andrea Dovizioso also put in a remarkable first qualifying session defending the colours of the Repsol Honda Team. The Italian rider has got faster and faster since the start of practice yesterday. Yesterday he set the eighth fastest time in the first free practice yesterday, but today Dovizioso was the sixth fastest and in the end the fourth best in the definitive qualifying session. In both the second free session as well as in the definitive night-time session, Andrea was always very competitive, always among the five fastest. His best time was 0.6 seconds off the pole set by the Australian Casey Stoner, a good time taking into account the fact that Dovizioso is still in the process of getting used to his official bike.
Dani Pedrosa, 1.57’729 secs, 20 laps, 108 km. >> Audio
“Well we’ve made it into the race and that was the aim of coming to Qatar so I’m please with that. I didn’t expect to improve my lap time by this much from yesterday so this is good progress. The leg feels a little better and I pushed harder today than yesterday, though this situation is not something that is fixed after one day. My lap time is not really so bad considering my condition and the time I’ve spent away from the track, but for sure I wanted to be faster than this and a bit further forward on the grid. Still, the race is here we’ll get ready to give it the maximum effort tomorrow. Maybe I can improve my lap times by a further second or so.”
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’55.977 secs, 19 laps, 102 km. >> Audio
“I’m very happy with this fourth position. We worked hard during qualifying, testing the two bikes with two different set-ups. Both solutions gave good feedback, I was confident, and the machine performance improved. I’m happy with the rhythm we found for the race with the hard tyres, and also the lap times we achieved with the soft tyre. I’m satisfied also because I had room for even more improvement during my last lap with soft tyre – in fact I made a mistake and I spoiled the improvement I’d made in T1. I think racing suits my style and mentality better than practice so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
