Dani Pedrosa is comfortable on the Valencian circuit, as his four wins –one in 125cc, two in 250cc and one in MotoGP- prove, and today, he has once again put in a good performance at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit. After clocking up the second best time in this morning’s free practice, in the afternoon, Pedrosa achieved the same position in the qualifying. But it hasn’t been all good news for the Repsol Honda Team today. On the other side of the garage, Andrea Dovizioso hasn’t had an easy day and his tenth position in the qualifying means that he will start tomorrow’s race from the fourth row of grid.
Like yesterday, the wind has been present at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit today, but that did not stopped the riders clocking up very fast times. In the morning, the four fastest riders in the top class took the leading positions at the end of the second practice, with Stoner first, Pedrosa second, Lorenzo third and Rossi fourth. Andrea Dovizioso, with the sixth best time, was just 8 tenths off Australia’s Stoner.
In the afternoon’s qualifying, a strong wind continued to blow at the Valencian track, although that did not stop the riders from significantly lowering their times. The positions of the first four were repeated in the afternoon and Australia’s Casey Stoner took pole position. To do this, Stoner fought an intense battle with Pedrosa and Lorenzo. Both of the Spanish riders were the only ones capable of getting close to the Australian, as fourth place and recently proclaimed World Champion, Valentino Rossi, finished 6 tenths off Stoner and 3 away from Pedrosa and Lorenzo.
The Italian Repsol Honda Team rider, Andrea Dovizioso, set the tenth best time, 1 second and 4 tenths off the best time, a position that complicates his aim of ending the season with another podium finish. In spite of this, and being upset with his result, Andrea remembers his good start in the last race held in Malaysia and hopes to repeat it in tomorrow’s race to opt for a good result.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’32.519 secs, 59 laps, 236 km. >> Audio
“I’m very pleased to be on the front row here, and the qualifying session went quite well for us. We’re still not at 100 per cent in set-up terms – especially in T3 where we’re losing some time. So if we can get that sorted out then I think our pace can be quite strong tomorrow, and we could maybe have challenged for pole position this afternoon. The front row is the important thing though, and now I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s race. I think everyone’s motivation for this race is very high and it should be a good battle – and a difficult one. I hope I’m there at the front fighting for the win because this would be a great way to finish the season for me and for the Repsol Honda Team. The other riders are strong though, so it won’t be easy. I’m excited about tomorrow and I hope to find that little bit extra on race day. For sure there will be many fans here as always and the atmosphere will be very special.”
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’33.678 secs, 63 laps, 252 km. >> Audio
“So, we really need another good start tomorrow. We proved that was possible at the last race where I qualified quite far back but came through quickly. However, I’m frustrated with how today went because we were much closer in the morning but couldn’t convert that into a competitive qualifying performance. In race trim we have one second to improve to be on the pace of the leaders, and that is a big margin and means we have plenty of work to do tonight. We made some improvements in both sessions, but we still needed to find some set-up solutions which will allow me to get the maximum from the soft option Bridgestones. I need to be quick off the line tomorrow because starting from the fourth row makes everything more difficult. It’s the last race of the season though, and we’ll be giving it everything.”
