Repsol rider concludes qualifying with top time, breaking the circuit record in the process. Casey Stoner will accompany him on the front row.
The last pole position of the season was decided today. Dani Pedrosa took it brilliantly, by setting a new circuit record with a time of 1’30.844, almost two tenths of a second quicker than the previous best, held by Valentino Rossi since 2006. Casey Stoner will also start from the front row after finishing third in qualifying today.
As happened yesterday in the second free practice session, after overnight rain many riders chose not to go out on track this morning at the start of the run, waiting for the asphalt to dry completely. It was not until the last ten minutes, with the track nearly dry, when the whole grid went out to put down a few laps. Dani Pedrosa was the man who had the best lap from the time available and set the fastest time of the morning, with a margin of more than six tenths over second place. His partner in the Repsol Honda Team, Casey Stoner, finished in ninth, after completing just four laps.
In a hotly contested qualifying session, Pedrosa and Stoner provided along with Jorge Lorenzo, a battle for pole position. In a thrilling closing dice of the session, all three rider took turns at the top of the timesheets, until Pedrosa finally won out. The Repsol rider was the only man able to break the 1’31 barrier, taking a new lap record of 1’30.844. Casey Stoner will accompany the Spaniard on the first row of the grid after finishing third, 584 thousandths of a second down on Pedrosa.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
FP3 – 1:33.033, 13 laps, 52 km.
QP – 1:30.844, 26 laps, 104 km.
“It was almost a perfect lap and I gave 100% because I knew I wouldn’t be able to improve any more as the tyres were very good for the first lap and then the drop in grip was quite severe. I’m very happy with the pole position and the new record because Valentino’s old record was done with qualifying tyres. We had only one dry session to test the new asphalt and we saw that the grip level is a little better but the tyres dropped down very quick. We still have to decide on the tyres for tomorrow because we have used only the soft compound, but it depends on the weather —if it rains we will need to take what we learned yesterday. I really would like to win here and finish the season with a good race.”
Casey Stoner >> Audio
FP3 – 1:34.991, 4 laps, 16 km.
QP – 1:31.428, 22 laps, 88 km.
“Qualifying didn’t really go to plan, it was a pretty frustrating session. Due to the miserable weather this weekend, we had a lot of work to do in a very short space of time, we did make some good progress but unfortunately we couldn’t find enough before the end of the session. There is a new surface here and we expected everything to be really good and smooth but in fact we’ve found there are a lot of bumps on the circuit. Now I’m thinking how we can improve the bike and get everything working a little easier. We need to adapt the electronics to allow me to be less restricted on this track so I can ride how I want to. Hopefully the weather is dry tomorrow and we can take that extra step in warm up.”
