Four Bridgestone-equipped riders from different teams will start tomorrow afternoon’s Spanish Grand Prix from the top ten of the grid with Fiat Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi the highest placed in fifth position. Casey Stoner will start from seventh for Ducati, John Hopkins will start ninth for Kawasaki while Loris Capirossi rounds out the top ten for Suzuki.
Jorge Lorenzo scored pole position for his home race by a margin of 0.6s from Honda factory rider Dani Pedrosa and Tech 3 Yamaha’s Colin Edwards. Despite Lorenzo’s dominant pole, Bridgestone is reasonably satisfied with the improved performance of its qualifying tyres this afternoon. Rossi and Stoner both recorded best laps quicker than last year’s pole position time but had their final runs interrupted preventing them from attaining higher positions.
Jerez was the only venue at which a Bridgestone-shod rider did not claim a podium result last season, something which the tyre manufacturer is keen to overcome this weekend. Lap times in race trim have been very competitive all weekend with several riders running well under last year’s best race lap, so consistent tyre performance over the full race distance will be the key to a good end result tomorrow afternoon.
Tyre Talk with Tohru Ubukata - Bridgestone Motorsport – Manager, Motorcycle Race Tyre Development
How satisfied has Bridgestone been with today’s qualifying session?
“We have been quite satisfied with the performance of our qualifying tyres in today’s session, even if the final grid positions are not where we want to be. I was surprised by the pace of Lorenzo and his pole position time just shows that we still have more work to do to close the gap to the front. Valentino and Casey both did good laps but encountered difficulties on their final runs, and without those I am sure both riders would have been further up the order. Nevertheless we now have to concentrate fully on tomorrow in the hope that our riders can make up important positions at the start of the race.”
How is Bridgestone’s race tyre performance?“We have worked hard to understand the variations in our race tyre options this weekend, but I think most of our teams have reached a clear direction for tomorrow. We are still lacking rear grip and some riders have also had front-end falls this weekend which we have been looking into. Initially we used front tyres which appear to have beena bit too hard for some riders in the conditions we have in Jerez this weekend, but we have softer specifications in the allocation which give better grip to combat this problem. We have a final warm-up tomorrow morning to finalise our preparations before the race, which I am sure will be closely-fought. I hope that our riders can all get good starts and can race towards the front of the pack.”
Bridgestone-shod Riders’ Qualifying Session Results:
Pos. - Rider - Team - Qualifying Time - (pos) - Gap to PoleP5. Valentino Rossi - Fiat Yamaha Team 1m39.064s +0.875s
P7. Casey Stoner - Ducati Corse 1m39.286s +1.097s
P9. John Hopkins - Kawasaki Racing Team 1m39.439s +1.250s
P10. Loris Capirossi - Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m39.484s +1.295s
P11. Shinya Nakano - San Carlo Honda Gresini 1m39.559s +1.370s
P12. Chris Vermeulen - Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1m39.704s+ 1.515s
P14. Alex de Angelis - San Carlo Honda Gresini 1m40.037s +1.848s
P15. Anthony West - Kawasaki Racing Team 1m40.088s +1.899s
P16. Toni Elias - Alice Team 1m40.286s +2.097s
P17. Sylvain Guintoli - Alice Team 1m40.939s +2.750s
P18. Marco Melandri - Ducati Corse 1m41.027s +2.838s
Weather: Dry
Air: 25°C
Track: 26°C
Humidity: 35% (taken from official MotoGP timing)
