The qualifying session for the US Grand Prix has ended with Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa third and fourth, respectively, after gradually improving their times at the legendary Laguna Seca circuit. Once again, the two Repsol Honda Team riders got among the fastest from the very start of the session, which ended with Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner in front of Dovizioso and Pedrosa.
Half-way through the season, both Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa are finding a consistency that, race after race, is putting them among the leading candidates to fight for the podium and more importantly, in the battle for victory. Very regular throughout the weekend, the Repsol Honda Team riders easily picked up a pace of around one minute and twenty-two seconds, times at which tomorrow’s race will most probably be run.
Towards the end of the session, Dani Pedrosa closed in on the fight for pole position, riding several laps at 1 minute and 21 seconds, although he eventually finished 677 milliseconds off Lorenzo’s time. In the last minute, his team-mate, Andrea Dovizioso, also took another step forward, securing third place and the last slot in the front row of tomorrow’s starting grid, stopping the clock at 1 minute, 21 seconds and 617 milliseconds.
Both trust that they can make slight improvements to the set-up in the warm-up tomorrow morning in order to get into the fight for the win at 2.00 pm (local time).
Dani Pedrosa, 1’21.655 sec, 65 laps, 235 km.
“We’ve improved the feeling from yesterday and this morning our pace was pretty good – we were closer to the other riders in terms of lap times. This afternoon with the soft rear at the end of the session we didn’t go quicker, but the front of the second row isn’t a bad place to start and we could probably have been further forward if we hadn’t had a bit of an issue with some vibration at the rear of the machine on my final run. We put a lot of laps on the Bridgestone tyres this afternoon – more than 30 on the same tyre – and they are working well. In the warm-up tomorrow we need to make a few final adjustments to the machine settings to improve our race pace by a tenth or two – we’ve got a few things to try. The choice of race tyre will be important so that we have the best feeling for race distance. I think we can be competitive if we make the most of the warm-up well tomorrow”.
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’21.617 sec, 69 laps, 249 km.
“I’m very happy about this session because this is my first front row of the season and qualifying was an area that we had to improve. We were fast from the beginning today and I have to thank the team because they’ve done a good job this weekend. Yesterday and also today I have been losing some time in T4, but for the final qualifying lap I pushed at 100 per cent and did my best final sector time – which gave me my fastest lap time and a place on the front row. I have a good race pace but we still need to improve a little because Stoner and Lorenzo are very fast. There is still a gap but we are not too far away. I think the race pace tomorrow will be between the high 1m 21s and 1m 22 dead, and I’m confident I can fight with the others. Plus, starting from first row makes this easier. For the tyre choice we will probably go with the soft option rear. Our machine balance is good and we have a positive feeling on this track so I’m confident for tomorrow”.
