The starting grid of the first race of the 2010 MotoGP season has been defined and Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa will start from the second and third row respectively. The Italian rider, sixth at the end of the hard-fought qualifying dominated again by Casey Stoner, sets off with the goal of fighting for the podium. In spite of having significantly improved his times at the Qatar track over the last few days, Dani Pedrosa will start from seventh position with the aim of getting as many points as possible and leaving this difficult Grand Prix behind him as soon as possible. However, at no time has he ruled himself out of the fight for the podium.
Pedrosa got down to work from the very beginning of the free practice. In just his fifth lap, he clocked up a time under one minute and 57 seconds, the first target that he set last night at the end of the first practice. With this initial best time, he took third place, where he stayed until the middle of the session, when he was knocked down to fourth by his team-mate, Italian Andrea Dovizioso. Both gradually improved over the second free practice, which Dovizioso ended fourth and Pedrosa seventh.In the qualifying session, Pedrosa kept up the pace and in just five laps, he stopped the clock at 1 minute, 56 seconds and two-tenths, a time that temporarily put him at the top of the timesheets. His time was then beaten by Stoner and Rossi, and the Repsol rider stayed in third place during a good part of the session.
However, from the second half of the session, when he went off the track for the first time with a softer rear tyre, the Spanish Repsol Honda Team rider could not do anything to stop several riders overtaking him. Watching on the circuit monitors how Pedrosa fought with his factory machine, which even twisted on the straight, makes the Spanish rider’s brave performance at the end of the session even more surprising, when in a final attempt to improve he took sixth place in the second row of the starting grid, but at the last minute, Capirossi beat his time, knocking him down to seventh place – the third row of the starting grid –.
The Italian Repsol Honda Team rider continued working hard with his technical team –step-by step and very confidently – in both sessions. Fourth in the final free practice, Dovizioso ended the qualifying in sixth place, gradually reducing the difference with the leading times and acknowledging that he should improve in the third section of the Qatar track if he wants to fight for a place on the podium tomorrow. Accepting that Rossi and Stoner currently have an unattainable pace at this circuit, the Italian has set himself the goal of dominating the second pack that will battle for the third step of the podium tomorrow. With sixth place on the starting grid – second row –, the start will be crucial, as this is a circuit on which it is very difficult to overtake.
Dani Pedrosa, 1’55.990 secs, 45 laps, 242 km. >> Audio
“We improved the set-up again today – a little bit in the morning and then a bigger step in the afternoon – and the lap time is coming down which means our position is better than we have been in recently. In the warm-up we will try to optimse the set-up a little more to help us with the race distance and then it’s down to the race where I’ll be looking for a good start of course. In qualifying I felt more comfortable on the hard option Bridgestone tyre which is why I was pushing hard at the start of the session. I wasn’t able to improve with the soft tyre so it looks like we’ll be going with the hard tyre for the race. It was actually a shame this evening because on my last lap I made a mistake and lost some time, and if I hadn’t done that I could actually have been 4th on the grid. Stoner and Rossi look very strong for the race, but there should be a big group fighting for the final place on the podium and I hope to be in amongst it”.
Andrea Dovizioso, 1’55.963 secs, 40 laps, 215 km. Audio
“Tomorrow we will start from the second row on the grid, and this is positive because on this track it’s not easy to recover positions – it’s very important to start well. We had a good qualifying session after having some issues during the first free practice today and our pace is not too bad. I could have gone a little quicker in qualifying, but overall I’m reasonably satisfied. There are two or three riders with similar pace so tomorrow our target is to fight for the podium. Casey and Valentino have an incredible pace, but I’m confident I can compete for third position – provided I make a good start. Now we will analyze the data from today and think about some machine adjustments that we will test in the warm-up. Specifically, I was losing a lot of time in T3 and I also need to improve my starts so that’s where we’ll be focusing. All in all I’m optimistic about tomorrow and I’m looking forward to this race”.
