Dani Pedrosa takes his third MotoGP pole in England.
Team mate Nicky Hayden drops down to the eleventh position. Shuhei Aoyama is fifth in the 250cc and local rider Bradley Smith is thirteenth in the 125cc.
Third pole for Dani Pedrosa since his arrival in the MotoGP class. After China and France, Dani Pedrosa has also managed to lead the qualifying practices of the British Grand Prix. The weather has brought sun and high temperatures to the Donington Park track, a rather unusual situation for this Grand Prix. Dani Pedrosa, who has already been fastest yesterday in both free sessions, only handed over the position this morning to Australian rider Stoner, finishing however second, only two tenths behind.
In the afternoon, Pedrosa showed himself as one of the fastest in the class during the timed session, moving up to the top of the time sheets some five minutes before the end of the session. There were some attempts to move him off the lead, but on his second tyre set, Dani gave the final touch to his position, improving the pole time by almost half a second, an advantage nobody was able to beat; second was Australian rider Vermeulen. Nicky Hayden, who today changed back to the chassis he has been using this season, finished in a back eleventh position. The American rider, already used to adverse positions on the grid, trusts in his qualified technical team to change the situation tomorrow morning during the warm-up, in order to face the race will full guarantees.
In the 250cc, Shuhei Aoyama improved the best time he had set yesterday by a bit more than half a second, finishing fifth after the second and decisive qualifying session. Eighth in the first session, the young Repsol rider keeps the place on the second row of the starting grid. The improvements in his bikes settings finally bore the expected fruit this afternoon and Aoyamas aim for tomorrow is to make a good start and not to loose contact with the leading group in the opening laps. Good performance for young Bradley Smith today in front of his fans. The Repsol rider set the thirteenth fastest time this afternoon in the quarter-of-a-litre qualifying session, getting a place on the fourth row of the grid, his best position in the World Championship since his arrival early this year. Despite the positive result, Bradley warns that this is no time for euphoria and the important part comes tomorrow with the race.
Rider´s comments
Dani Pedrosa,
61 laps, 16252 Km:
I think we did a good job today so we need to see tomorrow if we can complete the job. The feeling on the bike is good and the race set-up is just about there too so what I need to focus on now is making a great start tomorrow this is really important. The first few laps will be crucial too of course. I didnt expect to have such a big gap to the rest today, and to be honest I also didnt expect to get pole position at Donington, so its a nice surprise. We still have to make the final decision on the race tyre, so well see how the weather conditions are and use the time in warm-up tomorrow. Im pleased because weve worked really so far this weekend so Id like to say thank you to my team.
Nicky Hayden,
57 laps, 22931 Km:
Well, on the positive side Im only three tents from the front row, though obviously Im not thrilled with how qualifying went today. We had some electrical problems at the start of the session which cost me quite a lot of time but thats just the way it goes in racing sometimes. Well put our heads together and try to get an awesome start tomorrow and recover some places quickly. Im having a few issues in T4 at the end of the lap, getting quite a lot of wheelying and losing some time there, so well come up with something to work on that. Tomorrows the important day and Im definitely looking forward to the challenge. We had some kids here from the Make A Wish Foundation today and it was really nice to meet those guys too.
Shuhei Aoyama,
53 laps, 21321 Km:
The truth is that Im not really happy after the second qualifying session, because my aim for today was the first row of the starting grid, but in my final laps, when I tried to set my fastest times, I ran across several slower riders on the track that hindered me from being faster. But well, today was actually about setting one fast laps and tomorrow, the most important will be to make many of them in a row and I think that were ready for that. Well try to improve a bit the bikes behaviour. This afternoon were going to sit down with the Showa technician to analyse some improvements for the suspensions. Now I understand the behaviour of the bike a bit better, so we have to try to get a little bit more out of it for tomorrow.
Bradley Smith,
40 laps, 16092 Km:
Youve got to be happy with thirteenth, and its also a good start position for the race. Rather than being in the sixth row and Im now in the fourth. Im only a tiny, tiny little bit away from ninth position, so everyone is really close. There were some difficult moments and I was lucky to stay on. Weve got to be happy, I was lucky, not everyone went as fast in the second session, but still I was the one who put the time, I was the one who got thirteenth so youve got to be happy. But tomorrows the race. Tomorrows when you got to dig in and tomorrows when you get points, so Ive given myself the best opportunity to have a good race so I just have to wait and see.
Standings
MotoGP
- D.Pedrosa (Honda) 1’27.676
- C.Vermeulen (Suzuki) 1’28.158
- M.Melandri (Honda) 1’28.205
- J.Hopkins (Suzuki) 1’28.252
- L.Capirossi (Ducati) 1’28.394
11. N.Hayden (Honda) 1’28.509
250
- J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 1’31.659
- A.Dovizioso (Honda) 1’32.348
- H.Aoyama (KTM) 1’32.421
- A.de Angelis (Aprilia) 1’32.433
- S.Aoyama (Honda) 1’32.721
125
- A.Bautista (Apriia) 1’36.203
- M.Kallio (KTM) 1’36.566
- M.Pasini (Aprilia) 1’36.869
- S.Corsi (Gilera) 1’37.18
15. S.Gadea (Aprilia) 1’37.183
13. B.Smith (Honda) 1’37.656
