In spite of not being completely recovered from the injury he picked up in the Italian GP, the Repsol Honda Team rider Dani Pedrosa got a well-deserved second position in the definitive qualification session held this afternoon at the legendary circuit of Assen, where tomorrow Saturday, as is tradition, the Dutch TT is organised.
Unlike yesterday, when a bright sun shone and there were high temperatures, today the sky was covered with clouds. But fortunately rain did not appear and the temperatures were lower, something that made the development of qualification easier.
In the morning the performance of the two Repsol Honda Team riders gave some indications of their intentions to fight for the leading positions, with Dovizioso 3rd and Pedrosa a little further back, 6th.
In the afternoon, practice continued with the Repsol riders doing a long series of laps – 7 for both Pedrosa and Dovizioso – where they concentrated their work on the set up and tyre selection for the race. With 26 minutes left the two Repsol Honda Team riders went to the pits to get a softer rear tyre and then go out to set a fast time. Both riders returned to the track 24 minutes from the end.
Whilst Andrea Dovizioso could not get really comfortable with the set up on his Honda RC212V, Pedrosa gave signs of making good progress on each of the lap sectors. The Spaniard climbed to 3rd position on his first attempt whilst the Italian moved to 6th. With 12 minutes still to go the two Repsol riders returned to the pits to get the second and definitive softest rear tyre for their final attempt.
Whilst Dovizioso could not improve his time and in fact fell back to 8th position –third row on the grid – Pedrosa gradually lowered and improved his sector times until he coincided with Rossi, who in the end was the most direct rival in the fight for pole. Both did a lap with Toseland in sight in front of them, but in the end it was Rossi who was faster, followed by the Spaniard at just 85 thousandths of a second. Therefore Dani Pedrosa returns to the front row of the grid with the second fastest time.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’36.110 sec, 52 laps, 237 km. >> Audio
“I’m pleased with my qualifying position today, especially considering that there was quite a lot of traffic on track in the final few minutes. It’s always good to be on the front row because then you have the best chance to make a clean getaway, so I’m satisfied with second. I was lucky at the end of the session to have Valentino in front and being behind him helped me a lot to set this lap time. The feeling from the machine is quite good, although we still need to make some adjustments to the set-up to make best use of the Bridgestone tyres for the race, and this is what we’ll be working on in the warm-up tomorrow. My physical condition on the bike today was again much better than at the last race in Barcelona and this makes a lot of difference because I am able to concentrate fully on riding. I know that the race will be very physically demanding though, so I can take nothing for granted. Still, with some final set-up improvements, I hope I can make a good start and have a strong race tomorrow.”
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’37.237 sec, 55 laps, 251 km. >> Audio
“I have to say I’m quite disappointed about my qualifying result this afternoon because starting from the third row makes the race more complicated. Although my race pace was pretty good throughout the session, I didn’t manage to make the best of the soft tyre option, so tomorrow I will really have to focus on making a good start and recovering as many positions as possible during the first two or three laps. Apart from my grid position, I’m confident because I further improved my race pace with the hard Bridgestone tyres by two or three tenths compared to this morning’s session. Me and the crew will take a look at the data this evening to make some final decisions on the set-up solutions we tested this afternoon. The weather is looking uncertain again, but we’ve had some good wet/dry races this season so I’m not worried about the bike change if it happens.”
