A great performance today by Dani Pedrosa and Nicky Hayden at the timed training sessions of the Portugese Grand Prix. The World Classification leader will start tomorrow on the first row of tomorrow’s starting grid after runnng today’s second best time – 1’35.948 secs -, 233 milliseonds behind the pole position taken by Lorenzo. Teammate Nicky Hayden with start off tomorrow heading the second row, after he finished today in fourth place, keeping up a good pace throughout the day.
During the morning free training session, Pedrosa was fourth, lacking a few adjustments to his Honda RC212V, though in the official session it was not long before he was back in his stride and was second best on the time chart.
Nineteen minutes away from the end of the timed session, the Repsol rider first used qualifying tyres, which provisionally gave him first position, as later on other riders improved on his fastest time. In his second attempt with qualifying tyres he was second, ans improved his own time nearing the end of the session, guaranteeing himself a place on the front row of the starting grid when he finally rode the second best time.
Nicky Hayden today gave another fine perfromance on his Repsol Honda RC212V 2008, confirming the visible improvements he made a fortnight ago in Jerez. The Repsol rider was third in the free training session, finally falling to fourth – second row on the starting grid – in the timed sessions.
Julián Simón was unable to give a satisfactory performance today during the timed session, finally occupying eleventh position. The Repsol rider suffered two falls during the free sessions, the first in the long curve leading to the finish line, and the second fall happened when braking at the chicane. Fortunately the Repsol rider was not hurt in either incident.
During the timed session, problems with the brakes prevented him from riding comfortably in the curves, even riding off the track on one occasion. When he attempted to improve on his time, he nearly hit the ground on two occasions, so this afternoon he will have a look, along with his team, at how to adjust the setup of the bike so that tomorrow he can have a chance of riding among the leading riders. Things did not go too well either in the quarter-litre category. Tomorrow Esteve Rabat will start from the fifth row on the starting grid, after today he rode the eighteenth fastest time during the timed training sessions.
The Repsol rider still has difficulties getting used to his bike and is still unable to reach a fast enough pace. Rabat will try to fine-tune the setup of the suspension of his bke by tomorrow, and has already chosen the tyres he will use. Teammate Marc Márquez improved considerably with respect to yesterday’s training sessions, in spite of a few engine problems in the morning, which forced him to finish early without completing the session.
During the official training session, the Repsol rider improved on yesterday’s lap times by two seconds, though the fast pace he was reaching showed evidence of an incorrect setup. In fact, Márquez fell in the seventh curve during his last lap, when he braked and the the rear wheel lifted, making him lose control. Tomorrow’s warm-up will be crucial in order to make the last improvements before launching himself into his first race in the World Championship. He will start from 26th position, with the sole aim of gaining experience in World Championship Motorcycling.
Dani Pedrosa,
1’35.948 sec, 54 laps, 226 Km.
‘Our target was always to start from the front row and we achieved it. We are happy with today’s qualifying result, especially because it’s very important to start from the front row at this track and because qualifying isn’t our strong point at the moment. Our race pace was good today, but we still want to try and improve the bike a little bit more, working on the chassis settings. Also, we haven’t chosen which tyres we will use tomorrow because the weather conditions are so changeable here, so we will have wait a bit more. The big question is what the weather will do tomorrow afternoon. I’m looking forward to the race. It will be very important to make a good start, then we will see what we can do from there. I expect it to be very close at the front tomorrow because there’s a lot of riders going fast here, for sure it’s going to be tough.’
Nicky Hayden,
1’36.266 sec, 55 laps, 230 Km.
‘We’re right there, but just missing that last little bit. Everything went relatively smooth today, though I definitely thought we were capable of being on the front row – bike, tyres, even the rider – but we just didn’t get it done. Race pace I don’t think we’re a long way off but definitely we could do with a bit more. The Michelin tyres are working good, the bike’s good, we just need to get it better in the slow changes of direction. My ideal time had me third. On one of my fast laps I had to follow Toseland, when he wasn’t on a fast lap, through turn five and into six, which kinda ruined that lap. At the time I was pretty fired up about it. He was man enough to come and apologise, but at the time I didn’t want to hear sorry. It happens though, I’m sure I’ve got in somebody’s way, and I can get over it, it’s no big thing. It should be a good race, so long as no one’s sandbagging too much this week. Be nice to be on the podium, see what the weather does and see if we can get it done’.
Julián Simón,
1’41.820 sec, 39 laps, 163 Km.
‘It was a tough training session. This morning I fell twice, in spite of the good sensations I wsa having. But we didn’t run very good times in the official training session, so tomorrow we’ll be starting a liitle behind. We’re very motivated and know that the bike can perfrom well, so we’re going to work hard on it this afternoon, see if we can find a setup that can give me more speed. It was a shame, because I had a couple of frights in a row at the same curve using qualifying tyres, and when I tried to push ahead after that, the tyre wasn’t in the same condition and I couldn’t lower my time. But I’m motivated about tomorrow, looking forward to going out there riding up front.’
Esteve Rabat,
1’47.016 sec, 35 laps, 146 Km.
‘Today was a hard day and we had a few problems during the timed sessions. The first time we went out we had to do some running-in and that made us lose a couple of laps. Then I tried to ride as fast as I could but still didn’t manage to ride a good lap time. Afterwards I stopped in boxes and changed the tyre for another with a different composition. But it still wasn’t good enough, as the rear tyre tended to skid a lot, though that’s no excuse. What’s more, I wasn’t able to fit a good tyre for the second round, and almost fell when I stepped up on the gas. As for tomorrow I hope to have a good warm-up and to get off to a good start in the race. I’ll try be as far ahead as possible, because I’m findng it quite tough.’
Marc Márquez,
1’47.817 sec, 25 laps, 105 Km.
‘This morning was complicated; we tried out some new parts and it seemed the bike was perfect. But we suddenly ran into a problem and I wasn’t able to run many laps. That was quite unfortunate, because completing as many laps as possible is precisely what I need to do, in order to gain confidence on the bike and to get to know the circuit. But it wasn’t possible. In the afternoon, during the timed session, at the beginning things went quite well. but as I improved on my lap times, I started having suspension problems, as they’d been adjusted for a pace that was two seconds slower than what I was actually riding. Improving on yesterday’s lap times is normal, because it wasn’t a very good day, and I improved on it by two seconds. But in the end I fell, because as the suspension wasn’t properly adjusted, I was trying to go past my possibilities and hit the ground. We’ll try to adjust the suspension during tomorrow’s warm-up, and I hope to ride a good race and find a group to stick with.’
