Rain gives way to sunshine and the Repsol riders put the final touches to their strategies in Estoril
Sebastián Porto falls one place back and finishes second, with Fonsi Nieto sixth in the 250cc. Alex Barros drops to fifth in MotoGP and Pablo Nieto eleventh in the 125
The rainy morning caused several crashes in the three classes, including Alex Barros’, fortunately without physical consequences for the rider. Lucky enough, the morning rain gave way to wonderful sunshine in the afternoon, although with a lot of wind. The track was dirty due to the rain and it didn’t offer much grip, hindering most of the riders from improving the times they had set yesterday. In the MotoGP class, Alex Barros set the fastest time despite the light crash, but in the afternoon, the Brazilian, together with those riders who will probably be fighting tomorrow for the victory, i.e. Gibernau and Rossi, were not able to improve the times set yesterday. Rubén Xaus, delayed due to several mechanical problems, finished in a back eighteenth position.
The riders in the 250cc, had also a difficult time trying to improve the times set yesterday. Pedrosa managed to do so, taking the pole position from Sebastián Porto, who was not able to improve but will still be starting from the front row of the grid with the second fastest time. Third place for Toni Elias, who, as De Puniet -fourth- and De Angelis -fifth-, was not able to improve the times set yesterday. However, Fonsi Nieto did, and thanks to improving his time by a bit more than half a second moved up from yesterday’s eighth position to sixth this afternoon.
Only six riders among the top twenty managed to improve their times in the qualifying practice of the minor class. This morning, under the rain, Pablo Nieto finished thirteenth and one place ahead of him – twelfth – was his team-mate Sergio Gadea. In the afternoon’s qualifying practice and on a dry track, neither Pablo nor Sergio were able to improve their times. The condition of the track, with a very slippery tarmac, was the cause. Finally Pablo Nieto was eleventh -third row of the starting grid – and Sergio Gadea twentieth – fifth row.
